Audi: Blue Crude

[Y_K]

German car manufacturer used renewable energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into 'blue crude' oil which was then refined into diesel
The carbon dioxide can be removed from the air or from power plants
Audi claims its e-diesel is carbon neutral without adding to climate change
Tests suggest it allows cars to run quieter and produce fewer pollutants

Audi has created a so-called 'green' diesel fuel made using a combination of water and carbon dioxide.

The car manufacturer described its breakthrough as the 'fuel of the future' and claims it could provide a carbon neutral way of powering vehicles.

Experts used renewable energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into a form of crude oil known as 'blue crude', which was then refined into diesel.

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News Link here

 

[Shannow]

I've been seeing around the 'net Germans making oil using electricity for a few years...has merit

 

[JHZR2]

Capture of CO2 with an appropriate sorbent, and then creation of syngas via a reverse water-gas shift reaction (with subsequent Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and post-processing of the wax) is common knowledge. I have run this before from an R&D basis.

With endless renewables, it would theoretically work, but with endless renewables, other approaches would also likely work with higher overall efficacy and efficiency.

Guess they need a way to stop idling all the windmills in Germany.

 

[Shannow]

Renewables need storage, so unless they are things like biomass which you can store prior to making electricity, they need a storage medium and liquid fuels may be one such (albeit at an efficiency hit...but you get that with batteries and H2 also).

Makes sense to me to park a windmill on a remote hill, and send a tanker up every couple of days to harvest the yield.

 

[eljefino]

^ Yup, that, oil is energy-dense and compatible with current engines and infrastructure.

Imagine if we could harness the power of tides, suck CO2 out of the air, and turn it into oil. We'd pave the world trying to use it up.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Makes sense to me to park a windmill on a remote hill, and send a tanker up every couple of days to harvest the yield.

Or a huge solar farm on an otherwise useless tract of desert.

I love this idea.

 

[Shannow]

Every useless tract of Australian desert has a hundred protestors in orange overalls linking arms to stop something being done with it...

 

[Kuato]

Wow...though JHZR2 has done it, this is the first time I've heard about it, and this bodes well for the future. XOM will try to buy Audi next LOL.

 

[horse123]

This method is something like 100 years old. Nobody uses it because it's stupidly inefficient. If you're using renewable energy to run the process then it's better in every way to just use that directly in electric cars or send it through the power lines.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: horse123
This method is something like 100 years old. Nobody uses it because it's stupidly inefficient. If you're using renewable energy to run the process then it's better in every way to just use that directly in electric cars or send it through the power lines.

You're right of course, all else equal.


Three caveats:

1. Electric cars are only just starting to become viable. It'll be a while yet until they start seriously displacing combustion-driven cars. Until that happens in a big way, there'll still be a need for hydrocarbon fuels. Heck, even after that, we'll still need hydrocarbon compounds for a heck of a lot of other stuff.

2. Renewables will always be tricky to use on a power grid because they are inconsistent. Having a method to store the power they generate would solve that problem. I don't know if this chemical process would be the best storage method, but it's a method -- and as a side benefit...

3. It also does carbon capture.


So yeah, if you zero in on comparing the energy generated by the power plant vs. the energy used by whatever burns the fuel, this method looks ridiculous. It does become interesting when you zoom out and look at the tangential issues, though.