Fusion Oil

[Torulf]

One possibility I have read about is to use limestone (carbonate) for making oil. I can not find the link. In first this looks to be a worse greenhouse sores than coal. Limestone is incredible common and binds most of the earth

[Duke Leto]

Here’s a vicious and cynical line of thinking:

1) Oil wells become depleted because the energy required to get the oil out of the ground costs more then the energy yielded by the oil as fuel.
2) All oil wells are not tapped completely dry, there is almost always some deposit that can’t be sucked up economically.
3) A focus fusion reactor onsite vastly changes the cost of energy needed to extract the oil from the depleted wells.
4) There are tons and tons of depleted wells across the US.
5) If focus fusion works, why not use it to up US oil productivity to prevent a peak oil economic crash while EESTOR or some other electric car tech is implemented?

[Transmute]

My back-of-the-napkin calculations are nothing compared to government sponsored research, the amount of energy in renewable biomass is estimated to be between 1/10 and 3 times (averaging .5-1) world energy consumption. With Fusion assisted hydrogenated pyrolysis those numbers would double.
http://www.rics.org/Environmentalandlandconsultancy/Energy/bioenergy_renewables.html
http://www.timberbuysell.com/Community/DisplayNews.asp?id=1462

Duke Leto wrote: Here’s a vicious and cynical line of thinking:

1) Oil wells become depleted because the energy required to get the oil out of the ground costs more then the energy yielded by the oil as fuel.
2) All oil wells are not tapped completely dry, there is almost always some deposit that can’t be sucked up economically.
3) A focus fusion reactor onsite vastly changes the cost of energy needed to extract the oil from the depleted wells.
4) There are tons and tons of depleted wells across the US.
5) If focus fusion works, why not use it to up US oil productivity to prevent a peak oil economic crash while EESTOR or some other electric car tech is implemented?

It could actually happen in fact canada is planing on using nuclear reactors to steam out oil from oil sands.
http://www.inspi.ufl.edu/icapp07/TUESDAY/PL%202/7592%20ACR-1000%20for%20ICAPP%20D1.pdf

[JimmyT]

With regards to CO2 capture. The usual way to do this is by using high molecular weight amines. The CO2 and sulfur oxide gases dissolve readily in it. These can be recovered from the amine by heating. This works for both scrubbing synthetic fuels or as a means of capturing atsmopheric CO2.

[Viking Coder]

Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air (white paper available)

$5 billion capital cost for a plant that produces 18,400 bbl/day synthetic gasoline. Nuclear power accounts for more than 50% of the total plant capital investment. The estimated operating cost is $1.40/gal for synthetic gasoline.

Somebody already did the math for me, and it looks good enough for these rough calculations. 90 kWh per gallon of synthetic gasoline produced from CO2 extracted from the atmosphere.
Los Alamos Developing Process for CO2 Capture and Stripping from Air for Synthetic Fuels Production

Guesstimate the nuclear power plant included in the plant’s capital cost at $3 billion, leaving a base capital cost of $2 billion.

18,400 bbl/day = 773,000 gallons/day => 70 million kWh = 3 GW

The estimates are lining up. This is a Good Thing™. $3 billion for a 3 GW 3rd gen nuclear plant seems perfectly reasonable, since that is the conventional estimate of $1/W.

A 3 GW FF composite plant, i.e. 600 5 MW units with a linked output, would have a capital cost of $180 million. It would use 3 tonnes of decaborane per year.

90 kWh/gallon @ 0.1 cents/kWh = 9 cents/gallon of gasoline in electricity cost

There is no telling how much of that $1.40/gallon operating cost is for the nuclear plant. Figure on amortizing the $2.2 billion capital cost over 10 years at a 18% interest rate. That works out to monthly payments of $40 million, or $1.70/gallon. Round it down to a cost of $3/gallon.
syngas plant capital cost amortization

A $2 billion synthetic gasoline plant powered by a $180 million FF plant, with CO2 extracted from the atmosphere as a feedstock, could produce 280 million gallons of gasoline annually, at a cost of $3/gallon.

It would take 480 such syngas plants to completely fill the US’s gasoline consumption, based on its 2004 figure of 134.4 billion gallons.
Gasoline Consumption by Country

[Duke Leto]

Nice hammer!

[Brian H]

The necessity/desire to keep oil-based technologies running, or degrading gracefully, should take into account the non-CO2 pollution by-products, too. Particulate matter from diesel engines, e.g.. There are solutions at source (filtering, etc.), but by contrast with the on-coming electric-driven competition, it will become less and less economically sensible to keep pouring money into oil transportation technologies, except for the most demanding and inaccessible environments.

There is one type of power source that strikes me as competitive in the long run; that of orbital solar microwaved down to collection grids in isolated areas, or even inhabited areas (the intensity of the beams is actually quite low). But of course the up-front capital costs are huge.

I also like the Space Elevator possibilities; power can be generated from launched or associated tether craft, which use the ionosphere’s gradients to generate current. IAC, once F2 has broken the Cost Barrier, numerous options open up which are now only engineering scribbles and fantasies.

[JimmyT]

I think diesel engines are going to be very difficult to replace in some applications. Earth moving equipment. Probably large farm equipment too. Of course the fuel these use can be synthetic, or will be much cheaper due to the displacement of demand from other applications. But I can’t see any battery technology in any form which will provide the energy density necessary for these uses.

Some other less than obvious uses where focus fusion will excel: Powering oil rigs. These currently have to be powered by diesel fuel transported for some distance. I think Mr Lerner has already mentioned mine sites. And Rematog has mentioned industrial plants in general. And I agree with Rematog, the gains in these areas are easy to overlook and hard to overestimate.

[Brian H]

JimmyT wrote: I think diesel engines are going to be very difficult to replace in some applications. Earth moving equipment. Probably large farm equipment too. Of course the fuel these use can be synthetic, or will be much cheaper due to the displacement of demand from other applications. But I can’t see any battery technology in any form which will provide the energy density necessary for these uses.

…

The Stanford nanowire anodes and, say, http://www.enableipc.com/microbattery.html nanowire cathodes should produce energy densities around 10x that of current LiIon batteries, with much safer charge/discharge characteristics. Generalizing from the ESS system used in the TeslaMotors Roadster EV, that would mean a 1 ton battery would hold over 1000 kwh. Electric motors have big advantages, such as 100% torque at all speeds; the Roadster’s graph is basically flat from 0-120 mph or 0-13,000 rpm, single gear. 280 HP from a 115 lb motor. Compared to the performance of the roaring, snorting, spewing shovels I’ve seen, this sounds pretty good.

[JimmyT]

I just looked up the horse power ratings for a standard size earth-mover engine. The Caterpillar D8n non super-charged engine is rated at 600 HP (or alternately they say 384 Kw). 1000 KWh would be about 2 1/2 hours of diesel operation.
Earth movers can’t compete with a Tesla roadster on the quarter mile. But I would venture to guess that they weigh a good bit more. And a earth-mover in skilled hands can move it’s own weight every few minutes.

Here’s a link giving energy storage densities of various substances. Noticeably absent (from my perspective) is boron 11 and hydrogen.

Wikipedia.org/wiki/energy_Density

Looks to me like even if eestor’s claims are true. (And they are listed in this table) They are still only about 1/45th the energy density of diesel fuel. It’s true your “engine” is going to weigh less and thus you can incorporate more battery weight. Ultimately only a through engineering study is going to determine if this will be sufficient advantage to offset the energy density advantage of diesel.

I actually hope you’re right. Might be worth it. Guess it depends on the price of diesel fuel primarily.

[Duke Leto]

Well…

Why not just stick a FF reactor on the back of a half track with a few charge cable attached and have it follow the earth movers?

[Brian H]

Duke Leto wrote: Well…

Why not just stick a FF reactor on the back of a half track with a few charge cable attached and have it follow the earth movers?

(& Jimmy T.)
Heh. That could work, though they’d have to be quite the cables. Charging speed varies with amperage and voltage. Not optimally a portable power source (except in space); but for the BIG movers, it might be built-in.

The total weight before water shielding is 2 tons. Some of those rigs weigh hundreds of tons, so it would hardly be noticed.
As far as motor size goes, I wasn’t suggesting the specific one Tesla uses, just observing that the power/weight ratio of that TYPE of motor is very high. You’d use one(s) suitable to the task, of course. The energy density in the new batteries will be much higher than is currently possible. The Roadster uses 900lbs of battery. How about 10,000 lbs? How long would 6000 kwh last? Long enough, I’d think. (The nanowire designs are reputedly much lighter, as well, so even that trivial 5 tons would be reduced.)

IMO, EEStor is a huge short circuit waiting to happen until robustness is demonstrated. Pure vapourware, so far.

[Duke Leto]

Brian H wrote: IMO, EEStor is a huge short circuit waiting to happen until robustness is demonstrated. Pure vapourware, so far.

And FF is officially as mature a tech as AC/DC? (Either meaning.)

[Brian H]

Duke Leto wrote:

IMO, EEStor is a huge short circuit waiting to happen until robustness is demonstrated. Pure vapourware, so far.

And FF is officially as mature a tech as AC/DC? (Either meaning.)

Clearly not! But the science is coherent; EEStor’s has some handwaving and possible unobtanium involved. Those coatings they’re counting on are so difficult and touchy that one might reasonably doubt they can be produced.

Speaking of capacitors, there’s a great new development in light capacitance: http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13771

The implication is that everything from MW thru IR thru visual to UV and — X-rays can be focused? Never been done, and it would be fantastic. Would make the Scanner a lot better and easier to put together, I’d think.

Brian H.

[Transmute]

And this has what to do with fusion oil?

[Author]

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