[HN Gopher] Found: The 'holy grail of catalysis'- turning methan...
___________________________________________________________________
Found: The 'holy grail of catalysis'- turning methane into methanol
Author : pseudolus
Score : 295 points
Date : 2022-07-01 10:29 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| aredox wrote:
| Here's a BBC report from... 4 years ago.
|
| What has changed since then?
|
| https://youtu.be/MexeR2VozMA
| distantsounds wrote:
| defrost wrote:
| Improvements in efficiency and a change of the MOF catalyst.
|
| Here's a better casual news link for the 2017 Lehigh University
| | Cardiff University work:
| https://thebrownandwhite.com/2017/10/11/lehigh-cardiff-unive...
| johncearls wrote:
| This is a pretty basic chemistry question, but I thought someone
| her might be able to give a simple explanation why it seems most
| of these amazing catalysts are always made from precious metals.
| Why is it that super expensive things like gold and silver and
| platinum are always the backbone of these catalysts?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Precious metal tend to not bond for very long time. Making them
| rather useful as catalyst. On other had my guess is that this
| tendency also leads them to be rare in uppermost crust of Earth
| as they didn't bound with other materials, but mostly sink to
| lower, them also being rather dense on virtue of being where
| they are in periodic table. This rarity is what actually makes
| them expensive.
| anoxor wrote:
| The orbitals of the lowest elements on the periodic table are
| the largest in diameter and most flexible in bonding and
| rebonding.
|
| Their ability to easily make relatively short lived bonds is
| the key.
|
| These metals are often super poisonous for the same reason
| (heavy metal poisoning). They enter a biological system and
| effectively randomize a whole lot of bonds and molecules you
| want to be stable over decades.
| kurupt213 wrote:
| Not really. It's because of the D- orbital configuration of
| the coinage metal family.
| canadaduane wrote:
| By "lowest elements" do you mean elements with lowest atomic
| number (Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, etc.), or closest to the
| bottom of a chart hanging on a wall (Rubinium, Strontium,
| Yttrium, etc.)?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| It would seem to be the latter, given the reference to
| heavy metals (they probably mean noble metals more likely)
| jacquesm wrote:
| Because they are themselves less likely to react permanently
| with any of the intermediary products or the feedstock. Think
| of them as 'machinery that doesn't wear out quickly' which
| would make them a consumable.
| psychoslave wrote:
| I guess if it was possible to make it with common dust, they
| would have been discovered for long with random trial alchemist
| experiments, and so wouldn't look so amazingly uncommon?
| manmal wrote:
| Those metals are very stable and usually don't take part in
| reactions as reactants, and are usually catalysts, as you
| already mentioned. Meaning, they let the reactants form
| intermediates that wouldn't form without the catalyst. Eg by
| donating an electron that is given back when the reaction is
| complete.
|
| If the catalyst were not stable, it would become a reactant and
| be consumed quickly.
| Barrera wrote:
| I'm wondering if the last sentence from the abstract is more of a
| holy grail than the conversion of methane to methanol:
|
| > ... The confinement of mono-iron hydroxyl sites in a porous
| matrix demonstrates a strategy for C-H bond activation in CH4 to
| drive the direct photosynthesis of CH3OH.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01279-1
|
| Selective C-H bond activation (of which this paper is an example)
| is extremely difficult. It has been the focus of intense research
| for decades. Having a tunable catalysts system that performed
| this transformation would be a game-changer for the production of
| just of about every organic molecule. The authors just focused on
| methane as the hydrocarbon feedstock, so it's hard to know how
| general the process might be.
| feet wrote:
| That doesn't sound very selective to me, considering that the
| CH bonds on methane are all theoretically equivalent. Could you
| expand on this idea?
| anoxor wrote:
| Selective here means it adds a single OH (alcohol group) to
| methane and not two, there, four.
|
| If you keep adding alcohols (otherwise known as oxidation),
| you would end up with CO2 and waters - the same as burning
| methane.
|
| There is a massive property boon going from methane (gas) to
| methanol (liquid and easy to transport) and not further
| feet wrote:
| Is adding an OH to CH4 energetically equivalent for each
| successive OH added? Or at least close enough for the
| difference not to matter?
| kurupt213 wrote:
| No
| adrian_b wrote:
| The first oxidation step, from an alkane, like methane,
| to an alcohol, like methanol, is always the most
| difficult, i.e. the least likely to happen spontaneously.
|
| The next oxidation steps, from an alcohol to an aldehyde
| (formaldehyde in this case), then to a carboxylic acid
| (formic acid in this case), then to carbon dioxide, are
| much easier to initiate.
|
| So doing the oxidation only up to methanol, without
| losses into more oxidized compounds, is not likely to
| happen in the absence of a very selective catalyst, like
| in this case.
| feet wrote:
| This makes sense, thank you for the in-depth answer!
| moomin wrote:
| I mean, if the claims hold up and _only_ work for this
| particular interaction, it will still be workd-changing.
| Methanol production underpins an embarrassingly large chunk of
| the modern world.
| abirch wrote:
| This would be useful for dairy farmers. Addition revenue for cow
| farts and greenhouse gas reduction.
| ekianjo wrote:
| How do you collect the methane though ?
| abirch wrote:
| I was wrong, the methane capture that exists is methane from
| the manure.
|
| https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1077235578
| abirch wrote:
| Found this for cows' burps
|
| https://www.zelp.co/
| bertil wrote:
| Most of the current collection is from manure.
|
| Methane is lighter than oxygen and azote, so you should be
| able to collect some at the highest point of an air-tight
| roof of a cow shed. Not sure how much that would represent
| compared to manure.
| Sporktacular wrote:
| Methane is supposed to be abundant on some planets and moons.
| Would there be enough light available to turn it into rocket fuel
| for trips back?
| ekianjo wrote:
| Not sure . the amount of sunlight you get decreases with
| radius^3 and already at mars it gets quite low. Any planet
| beyond is probably not going to cut it.
| zbrozek wrote:
| r^2, right? It'd be ~r^3 if vacuum represented significant
| path loss to light at the kinds of ranges we're talking
| about.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| Methane is already a viable rocket fuel. I don't think it would
| make sense to convert to methanol first.
| perihelions wrote:
| Methanol is actually one of the oldest liquid rocket fuels,
| dating to WW2.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-Stoff
|
| I don't think it's a very good rocket fuel (it's already
| partly oxidized, for a start). Clark's _Ignition_ says Nazi
| wartime shortages were the reason for its addition to C-Stoff
| -- I 'll quote page 13:
|
| - _" But peroxide is not only a monopropellant, it's also a
| pretty good oxidizer. And Walter worked out a fuel for it
| that he called "C-Stoff." (The peroxide itself was called
| "T-Stoff.") Hydrazine hydrate, N2H4-H2O ignited spontaneously
| when it came in contact with peroxide (Walter was probably
| the first propellant man to discover such a phenomenon) and
| C-Stoff consisted of 30 percent hydrazine hydrate, 57 of
| methanol, and 13 of water, plus thirty milligrams per liter
| of copper as potassium cuprocyanide, to act as an ignition
| and combustion catalyst. The reason for the methanol and the
| water was the fact that hydrazine hydrate was hard to come by
| -- so hard, in fact, that by the end of the war its
| percentage in C-Stoff was down to fifteen."_
| pseudolus wrote:
| A brief description of some of the applications of methanol from
| the Methanol Institute:
|
| https://www.methanol.org/applications/
| DennisP wrote:
| Things I'm wondering:
|
| At scale, could it be cheaper to convert methane to methanol for
| export, compared to exporting LNG?
|
| Would it be difficult to convert chemical plants using methane
| feedstock to use methanol instead?
|
| I'm assuming natural gas power plants wouldn't be convertible,
| but coal plants maybe would. What would that cost?
| thinkcontext wrote:
| This has happened in WEst Virginia. They have stranded natural
| gas, that is no easy pipeline access, so it is available at a
| discount. China uses enormous amounts of methanol, so they
| funded a plant to convert the methane to methanol for export to
| China.
| jabl wrote:
| > I'm assuming natural gas power plants wouldn't be convertible
|
| Nah, gas turbines are relatively flexible wrt fuel. Might need
| different injector nozzles.
| credit_guy wrote:
| Methanol has a surprisingly low energy density. Here's a
| comparison with other fuels: - methanol: 20
| MJ/kg - ethanol: 30 MJ/kg - crude oil: 42 MJ/kg
| - gasoline: 46 MJ/kg - methane: 54 MJ/kg
|
| Currently the world ships about 400 million tons of LNG per
| year. To get the same quantity of energy, you'd need to ship 1
| billion tons of methanol.
|
| It does not automatically follow that methanol would be a bad
| alternative to LNG. Even if you need 2.5 methanol tankers for
| each LNG carrier, overall their cost could be lower, because
| they are simpler machines. The transportation cost would be
| probably higher, but transportation is not a huge component of
| the price of energy (it's just maybe 2%). The storage at the
| receiving site would be much simplified. Maybe the loading and
| unloading would be faster, even with the 2.5x multiplicative
| disadvantage.
|
| But overall this 2.5 lower energy density is still a very
| unpleasant aspect of the methanol as an alternative fuel.
| jacquesm wrote:
| But it's safer to transport and does not require
| pressurization and it boils off much less.
| 323 wrote:
| I think the majority of gas, at least in EU, is burned in
| residential heating units. Even assuming new burners that would
| work with methanol, I don't think you could send that through
| the existing gas pipes.
| andreareina wrote:
| Is methanol even safe to burn?
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| What do you mean "safe"?
|
| methanol + oxygen = water + CO2 + energy
|
| This is high school chemistry...
| p_l wrote:
| The exact physics of the reaction impact burner design
| and how much work is needed to adapt a burner designed
| for one fuel to another (sometimes impossible even if
| you're replacing gas with gas).
| Jabbles wrote:
| Methanol is highly toxic; it is important to consider how
| we can make pumping it into people's homes as safe as
| possible.
| [deleted]
| worik wrote:
| Is methanol more toxic than gasoline?
| throwaway821909 wrote:
| Not sure if you meant something else but just in case,
| "the majority of gas, at least in EU, is burned in
| residential heating units" means natural gas i.e.
| methane, not petrol/gasoline
| pfdietz wrote:
| Interesting. I've got a background mental process looking for
| results on large volume industrial applications of
| photochemistry. The reason is that these could provide a market
| for power beaming from space via lasers (and use of lasers might
| make power beaming practical on a much smaller scale than with
| microwaves, due to the much shorter wavelength). The laser light
| could be used directly in the photochemical process without
| having to convert it back to electricity.
| 323 wrote:
| Now we need another step to efficiently convert methanol to
| ethanol.
|
| That would truly be a "holy grail" - from methane gas to alchool
| :)
| WJW wrote:
| Here you go:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245192941...
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Can't wait to sell flatulence vodka to hipsters
| HillBates wrote:
| 0x69420 wrote:
| so if we fly crop dusters full of catalyst over ranches, can we
| turn cow farts into disinfectant?
| worik wrote:
| Pedantically: The methane from cattle comes in burps
| dotancohen wrote:
| Apparently the technique works at close to standard temperature
| and pressure. Considering that the Sabatier process can be run
| off water and electricity, and desalination can be done with
| sunlight, we have all the puzzle pieces for converting seawater
| to methanol via solar power. The chemical byproduct is oxygen,
| itself very a very useful element though difficult to compress
| and store. Even if the byproduct O2 is released to the atmosphere
| this looks very promising.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I have a tangential question:
|
| > "The process is 100% selective--meaning there is no
| undesirable by-product--comparable with methane monooxygenase,
| which is the enzyme in nature for this process."
|
| It seems like it should be pretty easy to get any given enzyme
| mass-produced. What is the reason we're not just growing a
| bunch of methane monooxygenase and using it to convert methane?
| less_less wrote:
| Even if you can mass-produce an enzyme and its necessary
| cofactors, it might not be easy to use it in an industrial
| setting. Some enzymes need a very particular environment to
| be stable (pH, temperature, salinity etc) or can be destroyed
| by side-reactions with other things in your tank. Some work
| only when bound to particular cellular components (e.g. the
| cell membrane). If they need energy to work then it's
| probably as ATP or NADPH, so you'd have to somehow supply
| that in your bioreactor. And of course you have to keep the
| whole tank sterile without damaging the enzyme.
|
| These problems notably plague attempts to use the even-holier
| grail of nitrogenases, basically enzymes for synthesizing
| ammonia using N2 and water. The current standard process for
| industrially fixing nitrogen (the Haber-Bosch process) is
| energy-inefficient and uses about 1-2% of the world's total
| energy supply, mostly in the form of natural gas. So
| significantly reducing its energy usage would be a huge deal,
| but we haven't been able to do it, nor do we fully understand
| how nitrogenases even work.
|
| You could also try to culture bacteria that do the whole
| process and maintain the enzymes for you. In the case of
| methanol synthesis though, even if you could do this you'd
| have to keep tes culture alive and working 24/7 at a remote
| industrial site. A flare stack is a lot simpler.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > What is the reason we're not just growing a bunch of
| methane monooxygenase and using it to convert methane?
|
| Probably the same as every other eco-friendly "get rich
| quick" scheme - the precursors are relentlessly unpleasant.
|
| "So all you need to do is take your water and yeast and
| cellulose and put it into a container, then slowly add the
| uranobenzene and methylated lead, bubble some nickel carbonyl
| through it, and gently warm it up to 900degC..."
| MarcoZavala wrote:
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > "So all you need to do is take your water and yeast and
| cellulose and put it into a container, then slowly add the
| uranobenzene and methylated lead, bubble some nickel
| carbonyl through it, and gently warm it up to 900degC..."
|
| It seems like a safe bet that production and use of an
| organic protein are best accomplished at temperature ranges
| normally maintained by whatever life forms naturally
| produce it.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Yeah, but this is what the workup always seems to read
| like :-)
| bongobingo1 wrote:
| Are we likely to discover in (* x 10) years that an over
| saturation of O2 in the atmosphere is damaging in some kind of
| way, on a global scale? AFAIK breathing pure O (or O2? Not a
| chemist) isn't great for your health?
| abirch wrote:
| Medical oxygen tanks are over 85%.
|
| That said everything would be more flammable.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| Earth atmosphere is 21% O2 vs. 0.04% CO2 (up from ~0.03% CO2
| prior to the human era.) Had all the gigatons of CO2 pumped
| into the atmosphere by human activities instead been O2, the
| effect would be negligible.
| beefield wrote:
| I would assume all the methanol produced this way is burned,
| taking the generated O2 from atmosphere to CO2.
| rileyphone wrote:
| Such a high level makes the terrifyingly large insects of the
| dinosaur era possible again
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Here's a funny posting by the Terminix (bug spray) folks:
| https://www.terminix.com/blog/bug-facts/giant-prehistoric-
| bu...
|
| It was actually before dinosaurs (Devonian and Cambrian
| Periods).
| dtech wrote:
| Atmospheric O2 is about 21%. CO2 is about 0.042% currently.
| It's 2 orders of magnitude difference, which is also why
| human activity can have a relatively large impact on CO2
| concentration.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| It's certainly not good for newborn babies - look up
| retinopathy of prematurity.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| It is famously damaging, so much so that the event that led
| to the current high concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere
| is called the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_Catastrophe
|
| Luckily, all the damage is already done, and our ecosystem is
| now well adapted to living in a bath of toxic gas.
| cipheredStones wrote:
| I've always found it funny that oxygen, commonly pictured
| as the benevolent stuff of life, is actually such so
| dangerous biologically. It's really a change in perspective
| when you realize that the reason we can't survive for five
| minutes without it is that we're running countless tiny
| power plants that use volatile chemicals and constantly
| struggle to dispose of the toxic byproducts.
| abirch wrote:
| If you happen to have an article of converting sea water to
| methane, please post. My searches bring back methane dissolved
| in sea water and I'm curious where the carbon originates.
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| i think parent refers to the sabatier process, so the source
| of carbon is concentrated CO2 externally provided, not from
| seawater
| hannob wrote:
| You're converting Sea water to water (desalination) and then
| do electrolysis to get H2. You need to get CO2 from
| somewhere, you can use Direct Air Capture technology to get
| it from the air. Then you do this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
|
| This is all known technology, the problem is it's not very
| efficient. Ultimately the discussion in climate tech circles
| these days is usually that most people think you'll rarely
| ever do this. Whenever you can you'll use something more
| direct, like using Hydrogen directly as an energy carrier.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I love promoting the fact that RF (13.56 MHz) can directly
| electrolyze saltwater without electrodes (and without
| desalination). The process was discovered by an amateur
| radio technician and it was treated like pseudoscience
| because of breathless local news coverage that made it
| sound like it was a fuel source.
|
| The YouTube video ("burning saltwater") is a classic--but
| there still isn't a proper study on the efficiency of the
| process. (The radio technician, John Kanzius, died of
| cancer).
|
| https://youtu.be/Tf4gOS8aoFk
|
| Edit: here is a scientific paper characterizing the
| process, which is pretty interesting. No calculation of
| efficiency, however. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.
| 1088/0963-0252/22/1/01...
| techdragon wrote:
| While he may not have gotten it more widely studied to
| evaluate the efficiency... did he publish more
| information about his process? Or did his methodology die
| with him?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Well, the method is shown in the video. Put a test tube
| of saltwater in front of an 13.56 MHz RF generator (radio
| antenna) and light 'er up.
|
| The paper I posted uses a focused beam of RF and more
| deliberate lab methodology. But with just 5 citations, I
| feel like there might be a missed opportunity.
| techdragon wrote:
| Thanks for posting the paper! With anything RF related it
| can be a complete shot in the dark for anyone trying to
| reproduce the work without things like the frequency
| involved. I mean sure you could do some physics, pick a
| range of likely frequencies and scan around but then your
| at the mercy of how much power you can generate at
| tuneable frequencies and still relying on a bit of
| guesswork.
|
| Even if it's not efficient this is a great RF science
| demo so it's good to spread the knowledge around. Thanks
| again for posting it.
| adrian_b wrote:
| It is unlikely that the exact value of the frequency has
| any importance.
|
| They have used 13.56 MHz just because it is one of the
| frequencies for which it is easy to find high power
| industrial generators, which are used e.g. for induction
| heating.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Here's a mildly optimistic future vision for large-scale
| hydrogen production:
|
| * We build arrays of underwater resonating tubes (~ 17 m
| for 13.58 MHz) that optimize the RF process efficiency
| for generating hydrogen.
|
| * Out in the open ocean, it's powered by floating
| gigawatt solarpads.
|
| * "Blossoms" of enormous mylar cells are continuously
| filled up with hydrogen.
|
| * The mylar hydrogen cells are plucked and transported
| for further processing via _drone zeppelins._
| twic wrote:
| That is a fun discovery. But if it's producing the
| hydrogen and oxygen as a mixture, rather than two
| separate streams, as conventional electrolysis does, i'm
| not sure it's very useful.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| It's a good point. Electrolysis produces hydrogen at the
| cathode and oxygen at the anode, making separation easy.
| But columnar separation may also be efficient, as the
| hydrogen will easily float on the heavier oxygen. Not an
| expert, though.
| samatman wrote:
| Stoichiometric mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen are
| terrifying to work with. No thanks.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Traditional methane-to-methanol with carbon monoxide
| intermediate (based on steam reforming of natural gas):
|
| CH4 + H2O - CO + H2
|
| CO + 2 H2 - CH3OH
|
| Direct reduction of CO2 to methanol without going through the
| methane, an already established technology (Fischer-Tropsch
| type chemistry):
|
| CO2 + 3H2 - CH3OH + H2O
|
| Methanol is a common feedstock for further chemical synthesis
| (such as making high-octane gasoline), so this is an option for
| fuels from direct air capture of carbon dioxide & electrolysis
| of water for hydrogen. Two methanol molecules are dehydrated to
| form dimethyl ether (CH3-O-CH3) as the initial step:
|
| > "Methanol can be used to make a gasoline product. The process
| uses a special zeolite catalyst with pore size such that
| molecules up to C10 can get out of the catalyst. Larger
| molecules cannot be made with this process; therefore, a
| product is made with no carbon molecules greater than C10,
| which boils in the gasoline range. In this process, aromatics
| and branched-chain alkanes are made, which means the MTG
| process produces very high octane gasoline. Gasoline is the
| only product."
|
| https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee439/node/679
| adrian_b wrote:
| Besides being relatively easy to convert into a gasoline
| product, methanol is also a convenient fuel for fuel cells,
| for direct conversion with high efficiency into electrical
| energy.
|
| When used for fuel cells, methanol does not have the storage
| problems of hydrogen, even if any equipment using methanol
| must be designed carefully, to avoid any leaks, which are
| dangerous because methanol is toxic and may cause blindness
| when ingested or absorbed through the skin.
| hannob wrote:
| We already have all the ingredients to turn CO2+H2 into
| Methanol without an intermediate step turning it into Methane.
| There are already a few production plants, e.g. one by Carbon
| Recycling International.
|
| It's not super efficient, but I am pretty sure you're not going
| to improve that by introducing an intermediate step.
| ascar wrote:
| > It's not super efficient, but I am pretty sure you're not
| going to improve that by introducing an intermediate step.
|
| What's the foundation of that argument? An intermediate step
| that's achieved more efficiently and allows for a more
| efficient follow-up certainly can improve the efficiency of
| the overall process compared to one with less steps?
| ABCLAW wrote:
| Most chemical synthesis steps produce side products. More
| steps means more %yield loss.
|
| If it's possible you go from A->B at 80% efficiency. If we
| compare this with A->C then C->B need to be nearly twice as
| efficient to provide a better yield.
|
| Remember these steps include losses due to non chemical
| reasons. You might have issues with your reactors or
| transferring the solution to a new reaction chamber might
| incur losses, etc.
|
| In most complex organic synth situations, the full
| synthesis will be 8-20 steps or so, so we're talking about
| yields of %efficiency^x. Lowering X helps a ton.
|
| In short, the alternate route needs to be really good to
| justify additional steps.
| criddell wrote:
| > I am pretty sure you're not going to improve that by
| introducing an intermediate step
|
| Isn't that the entire reasons catalysts are so valuable?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > It's not super efficient, but I am pretty sure you're not
| going to improve that by introducing an intermediate step.
|
| Perhaps we could so with a llittle self-awareness?
|
| To come here and simply state that all these PHDs develop a
| new process while you here rest in certainty that it is
| doomed to failure.
|
| Without demonstrating any understanding of catalysts or
| anything beyong highschool chemistry. Without presenting any
| evidence or agument except 'extra step is bad'
| jeltz wrote:
| I agree with your main point. But there are plenty of PHDs
| out there working on projects doomed for failure. That is
| actually one of the main reasons why my brother left
| organic chemistry research to become a software engineer
| (the cutthroat abuse of peer review was another). He was
| tired of all the people getting grants for projects doomed
| to fail. Sure some of them might accidentally stumbling
| onto something useful but he became tired of all research
| in this field into known dead ends.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| God help anyone still getting grants for molecular
| electronics.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| Paper: _Direct photo-oxidation of methane to methanol over a
| mono-iron hydroxyl site_ by An, B., Li, Z., Wang, Z. et al.
| Published in Nature Materials in June 2022.
|
| Publication page:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01279-1
|
| Digital Object Identifier:
| https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01279-1
| HillBates wrote:
| jmyeet wrote:
| Many don't know this but the most important thing to know about
| solar is that it is _so far_ the only method of _direct_ power
| generation that exists. Nuclear and various fossil fuels create
| heat that boils water to generate steam that turns a turbine to
| generate power. This adds cost and complexity that you can never
| get away from.
|
| But solar by virtue of being direct avoids all of this so has a
| lower bound in cost that other methods of power generation will
| find it hard to compete with. Solar cells can be small so solar
| power is highly flexible. Plus it has no moving parts (other than
| sometimes solar cells are moved slowly to face the Sun as it
| moves through the sky) so it's upper bound for reliability is
| hard to beat.
|
| I actually think solar is and will be the most important method
| of power generation in the coming centuries that will culminate
| in space-based solar power collectors.
|
| So solar has the potential to be extraordinarily cheap, reliable
| and require no expensive infrastructure like power lines.
| Creating methanol is essentially a way of storing excess energy
| so this could be a real game-changer for developing nations that
| lack such infrastructure.
| jdironman wrote:
| And even more so if the plants which produce solar products use
| solar power to offset. I wonder if they do that or not. I'm
| guessing it's not quiet that simple and distributors of the
| individual components vary in their methods.
| itsthecourier wrote:
| Dyson sphere style
| elzbardico wrote:
| Solar power is intermittent. This make it far more expensive
| for practical, real world applications in large scale. Nuclear
| is the only thing that can realistically substitute fossil
| fuels. Solar is at best a niche due to the storage needs.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Well, hydro or wind power don't have their own heat engine (the
| planet of course does stuff with sunlight that ultimately moves
| the turbine blades, yes)
| credit_guy wrote:
| > Nuclear and various fossil fuels create heat that boils water
| to generate steam that turns a turbine to generate power. This
| adds cost and complexity that you can never get away from.
|
| That part is almost negligible. A General Electric LM6000
| turbine costs about $20 million and generates about 50 MW of
| electricity. That translates into $400 MM per GW.
|
| Solar comes to about the same price, but it has a capacity
| factor of only 30%, vs 98% for the GE LM6000 turbine.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > Nuclear ... create heat that boils water to generate steam
| that turns a turbine to generate power.
|
| One of my greatest disappointments as a kid was learning this.
| I'd thought nuclear power somehow got the power of the atom
| directly to a wire/grid.
| Voloskaya wrote:
| Maybe RTGs [1] that are used on some spacecraft will
| reappoint you.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectri
| c_ge...
| throwoutway wrote:
| Love the comment and the use of the word "reappoint". Never
| thought of the root of the word "disappoint" prior
| perihelions wrote:
| These would also count as "direct" power generation, I think
| (how should it be defined?). None of them work at scale, yet.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophotovoltaic
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-03 23:00 UTC)