| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Tech |
| Pushing Solar to Within Competitive Range of Grid Power |
| 2005-08-03 |
| This is an interesting concept. Essentially they are using hot water from passive solar to generate electricity and then methane. I'm sceptical they can use it to capture CO2 from the air as they claim, but I can see how it could work as an adjunct to a coal power plant. These are just the bullet points from the start of the article. Towards the end they lay out their business plan for progressive introduction. Assuming the technology works, this could make a real difference, unlike the usual alternative energy snakeoil.Coming into production in September, thermal solar panels from International Automated Systems will produce electricity at 3-5 cents per kilowatt-hour . Bladeless turbine has wide range of waste-heat-harnessing applications. Methanol production technique will utilize CO2, drawing it out of the environment and recycling it. New U.S. energy bill opens a financing method that will enable this technology to quickly become a foundational component of the energy-generation infrastructure. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #3 Most plant tissue is created from CO2. To get CO2, they open pores in their leaves. But this also lets out water. So, the more CO2 in the air, the less they need to open their pores, and the less water they need. So in water poor countries, build sealed greenhouses that have extra CO2 pumped into them. They get really productive crops, use far less water, and the CO2 is tied up in plant matter that can be decomposed into ethanol. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-03 20:42 |
| #2 I thought it was interesting for 2 reasons. One was passive solar is cost effective to heat water. Extending that to electricity generation is an obvious step. Combining it with carbon capture adds value, and carbon capture is the only way to reduce CO2 levels (given Kyoto is a complete bust). Potentially this is a moreorless zero cost way of controlling CO2 levels. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-08-03 20:12 |
| #1 This is a bit confusing on the surface, and only makes sense with some additional research. First of all, while they might make methanol about the same price as gasoline, it has about half the energy, so, for example, you can only drive half as far on a tank. (Same engine power, though). However, ethanol has more energy than methanol, and is made of renewable biomass, so why not use it? Because it is very expensive to make, even though it is heavily subsidized by the government. So this company is essentially trying to sell the Kyoto accord. Even though our methanol is twice the price of gasoline, it would recycle lots of carbon that might otherwise pollute or just be expensively buried underground. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-03 18:32 |