Synthetic-fuel Recipe: Mix CO2, water; heat with sun. Stir gently and drive on, Dude.
Imagine internal combustion as a reversible process. If CO2 could be recycled into fuel, how would the ever-diligent bureaucrats calculate the emissions of my truck? As crazy as this sounds, a report from Electronic Engineering Times says scientists at Sandia National Laboratories are building a system for synthesizing fuel. The system will harness sunlight to reverse the process of combustion. The reactor would use reclaimed carbon dioxide emissions to create renewable synthetic fuel by combining the CO2 with water.
Rich Diver, the inventor, says the "solar-powered reactor could help clean up the planet by making internal combustion a reversible process." "Rather than make hydrogen for people to use in fuel cells, we think it might make more sense to make a synthetic fuel that is already compatible with our existing [gasoline engine] infrastructure,"
If successful, the invention could be used to collect carbon dioxide from coal-burning plants to produce synthetic fuel to power conventional engines thus making internal combustion a renewable process. I wonder how many ft2 of solar panels I'll need to keep my tanks full?
Thanks for reminding me about the Sandia National Labatory. Sandi engineers, check that engineers, prepared a report, buried by the Regan administration and neglected by the media, which basically debunked the oft quoted book titled, "A Nation at Risk." You can find a good summary of the Sandia study at; www.edutopia.org/landmark-education-report-nation-risk.
Posted by: G. Cross | December 29, 2007 at 07:31 PM
George, an analysis of SAT scores does no more to debunk the existence of an education problem than NCLB tests do to prove the problem.
Posted by: Greg Decker | December 30, 2007 at 09:37 AM
The Sandia report is much greater than an analysis of SAT scores, although that point alone is very important. Most of us agree that public schools can improve. The real issue is that we can not agree on the problems that exist or how to accomplish improvements. The unfortunate part about the Sandia report is that it was non-agenda driven, but was canned because it did not fit the message that the then federal administration wanted to present.
By-the-way, Sandia was not the first nor shall it be the last report to suffer such a fate. This is why open blogs may be the one way that both sides of a story can be heard. Thus, the work of this site and many others is so important to a free flow of information and opinion.
Posted by: G. Cross | December 30, 2007 at 10:45 AM
Do you have a copy of the Sandia report that you would care to share?
Posted by: Greg Decker | December 30, 2007 at 11:12 AM
Greg, I do not have a copy at this time. Mine is parked somewhere on an old computer, but the computer is long gone. I can direct you to a source for it. The full text of the Sandia report is in an article in the May/June 1993 issue of the Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 86, No. 5. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on one's viewpoint, I am only smart enough to dig out where to find it.
Posted by: G. Cross | December 30, 2007 at 02:05 PM
While we continue, in Vermont, to haggle about old technologies that will never support base-load power demands in our digital world, this is some of what is happening around the world:
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Israeli+discovery+converts+radioactive+waste+into+clean+energy+19-Mar-2007.htm
When is it that we have not reaped what we have sown?
We are making ourselves irrelevant to the nation's economy, never mind the world economy, with our refusal to acknowledge our appetite for electricity and its role in a modern society.
James Ehlers
Posted by: James Ehlers | December 31, 2007 at 11:49 AM