New Machine Produces Usable Gasoline from Air...

[dullard]

You are right in saying that individual households do not need storage on the scale that I am talking about, but we certainly do if we as a society want to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar energy. I plead guilty to thinking about the problem of energy storage at this societal level. (And I am making the assumption that large-scale approaches will prove to be more efficient than widespread application of small-scale approaches.) FWIW I also harbor (perhaps unfounded) concerns over the possible abrupt release of energy from malfunctioning storage devices in home settings.

I would have let it slide if your recommendation wasn't ~4 to ~5 orders of magnitude larger than the product described in the thread.

You are correct though that large scale solutions are necessary and more efficient. They are absolutely needed. But, large scale storage fights a lot of head winds. Politics, NIMBYism, closed minds unwilling to actually discuss things, requirements to be profitable nearly instantly, massive startup capital needed, etc.

Small scale is what can be done now by those who want to do it. People were aghast that my solar panels will take 14 years to get a positive return on investment (it could have been 12 years, but I over paneled a bit for future proofing). But, I have the money, I have the desire, and even if it takes 14 years it still will be a profitable investment for me. I personally have both an EV and a home battery system for storage of excess power. But, realistically some still spills over and is used by my neighbors houses and I do consume some energy from the public utility since I haven't gone totally off-grid. It is about the only step that I can make to not consuming all our natural resources and polluting the world in the deep red farm country that I live in.

I wish this Aircela product works well at a good price. I personally think there just happens to be a lot better use for that solar power. Store it temporarily in products that are viable now. Or for long term storage, I'd rather store that extra solar energy in indoor farming like tomatoes, peppers, root vegetables, or leafy greens (those also take CO2 out of the atmosphere). Storing it in gasoline just seems too inefficient.

 

[Brainonska511]

Store it temporarily in products that are viable now. Or for long term storage, I'd rather store that extra solar energy in indoor farming like tomatoes, peppers, root vegetables, or leafy greens (those also take CO2 out of the atmosphere). Storing it in gasoline just seems too inefficient.

For grid-based or even local storage, I feel like there could be a market for recycled batteries. Power plants and substations likely have decent amounts of ground space that could house batteries that are not necessarily good for mobile uses any more, but still have plenty of cycles and juice left for general energy storage.

 

[Red Squirrel]

What would be cool is if power companies pay people/companies for storing energy. If you have a big property you could setup arrays of batteries, or any storage medium you want to come up with, and you get paid for taking power at certain times of the day and providing it at certain times, how you do that is up to you. This could be automated via a web API so you can program your system to simply query their API to know if you should be taking or giving power. Once they have a network of micro storage it makes renewable energy more viable too as their systems could determine how much storage is currently on the grid then decide how much they want to pay to store energy instead of letting it go to waste, or they can ramp down certain plants. Basically they could make decisions based on market and other parameters. This could also boost more R&D into storage tech as companies could profit off this.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I would have let it slide if your recommendation wasn't ~4 to ~5 orders of magnitude larger than the product described in the thread.

You are correct though that large scale solutions are necessary and more efficient. They are absolutely needed. But, large scale storage fights a lot of head winds. Politics, NIMBYism, closed minds unwilling to actually discuss things, requirements to be profitable nearly instantly, massive startup capital needed, etc.

Small scale is what can be done now by those who want to do it. People were aghast that my solar panels will take 14 years to get a positive return on investment (it could have been 12 years, but I over paneled a bit for future proofing). But, I have the money, I have the desire, and even if it takes 14 years it still will be a profitable investment for me. I personally have both an EV and a home battery system for storage of excess power. But, realistically some still spills over and is used by my neighbors houses and I do consume some energy from the public utility since I haven't gone totally off-grid. It is about the only step that I can make to not consuming all our natural resources and polluting the world in the deep red farm country that I live in.

I wish this Aircela product works well at a good price. I personally think there just happens to be a lot better use for that solar power. Store it temporarily in products that are viable now. Or for long term storage, I'd rather store that extra solar energy in indoor farming like tomatoes, peppers, root vegetables, or leafy greens (those also take CO2 out of the atmosphere). Storing it in gasoline just seems too inefficient.

What I love about the long ROI argument is that the alternative is to just give your money to someone else for no good reason. If I had the cash I'd drop it on solar in a hot second.

Someone needs to make an exceedingly simple, modular solar panel system. Like '500 to get the inverters and first panel, $250 for each panel after that' and just lego brick them together out in the yard.

 

[dullard]

What would be cool is if power companies pay people/companies for storing energy. If you have a big property you could setup arrays of batteries, or any storage medium you want to come up with, and you get paid for taking power at certain times of the day and providing it at certain times, how you do that is up to you. This could be automated via a web API so you can program your system to simply query their API to know if you should be taking or giving power. Once they have a network of micro storage it makes renewable energy more viable too as their systems could determine how much storage is currently on the grid then decide how much they want to pay to store energy instead of letting it go to waste, or they can ramp down certain plants. Basically they could make decisions based on market and other parameters. This could also boost more R&D into storage tech as companies could profit off this.

Time-of-day or other time-variable electricity pricing does exist in some markets. Unfortunately, in many of those markets, the price differential is not quite enough to be viable. Suppose the price difference is 20% from peak to off-peak hours. But, storage technology has losses. You might lose 10% storing it and another 10% converting back to electricity. So, in the end, it becomes a wash. The money you gain on the differential is lost in inefficiencies.

There are a few places where the price differential is sufficient to realistically do what you propose. And there will be more in the future. Just right now, it is pretty hit-and-miss.

 

[Brainonska511]

Time-of-day or other time-variable electricity pricing does exist in some markets. Unfortunately, in many of those markets, the price differential is not quite enough to be viable. Suppose the price difference is 20% from peak to off-peak hours. But, storage technology has losses. You might lose 10% storing it and another 10% converting back to electricity. So, in the end, it becomes a wash. The money you gain on the differential is lost in inefficiencies.

There are a few places where the price differential is sufficient to realistically do what you propose. And there will be more in the future. Just right now, it is pretty hit-and-miss.

Running a power grid also has some fixed costs and operational concerns. It isn't exactly plug-and-play.

 

[William Gaatjes]

What would be cool is if power companies pay people/companies for storing energy. If you have a big property you could setup arrays of batteries, or any storage medium you want to come up with, and you get paid for taking power at certain times of the day and providing it at certain times, how you do that is up to you. This could be automated via a web API so you can program your system to simply query their API to know if you should be taking or giving power. Once they have a network of micro storage it makes renewable energy more viable too as their systems could determine how much storage is currently on the grid then decide how much they want to pay to store energy instead of letting it go to waste, or they can ramp down certain plants. Basically they could make decisions based on market and other parameters. This could also boost more R&D into storage tech as companies could profit off this.

We have that sort of in the Netherlands, that people get payed for storage and producing electricity. And it is a crazy system here because the grid was not designed to handle all those solar panels with inverters. What happens here in the Netherlands is as follows : The voltage is 230V AC 50Hz. When the grid voltage rises because of too much electricity generating and not enough electricity consumption, to about 110% of 230V = 253AC, all solar inverters that measure this 253VAC are required to shut down.
For safety measures.

So when there is a lot of sun in the Netherlands but there is not enough electricity consumption. Solar inverters all shut down to lower the grid voltage to less than 253V AC. And in some cases and places in the Netherlands people with solar inverters have to pay money to the utility company. So, there goes the investments return...

And it gets even worse. People in the Netherlands get payed to burn through electricity, what happens in practice is that load dumps(Huge 10KW+ resistive heaters with forced cooling) are now connected to the grid in the Netherlands to lower that grid voltage to well below 253V AC.
So solar inverters shut down when needed and people are using electrical stoves and heating on mid summer days (+25 degrees celcius) because they get money to burn the electricity. Effectively being a load dump.
It is crazy. Totally insane. That is what you get when there is politicians that do not listen to professors of universities that actually have an understanding of problems that can and will arise.

The solution of course is to use home battery system with inverter or do something else with it like in the OP post, post#1.

So with that in mind, that this can also happen in the bigger cities of the USA. Making ammonia or gasoline from solar electricity is not such a bad thing. Since when you cannot store that electricity, be sure to not create a overvoltage and over capacity. The grid is very difficult to understand as seeing as electrical impedances. And politicians forget that too often.

All they see is stocks and commodities, the electrical grid is not wall street !

 

[William Gaatjes]

As a sidenote :

There is one problem with lithium storage: When lithium storage catches on fire and burns. One cannot use water to put the fire out with lithium storage fires.
Lithium reacts with water, explosively.

Special foam fire extinguishers are needed. And that foam, highly likely contains large amounts of PFAS. So we go in circles with lithium energy storage.
Lower the CO2 footprint, increase the global (carcinogenic) PFAS pollution...

And i am not even talking about lithium mining.

So with this in mind, making clean gasoline from solar power and air. Is not such a bad idea.

 

[dullard]

As a sidenote :

There is one problem with lithium storage: When lithium storage catches on fire and burns. One cannot use water to put the fire out with lithium storage fires.
Lithium reacts with water, explosively.

Special foam fire extinguishers are needed. And that foam, highly likely contains large amounts of pfas. So we go in circles with lithium energy storage.
Lower the CO2 footprint, increase the global (carcinogenic) pfas pollution...

And i am not even talking about lithium mining.

So with this in mind, making clean gasoline from solar power and air. Is not such a bad idea.

You are thinking of lithium ion batteries. Those are used in cars because they are lightweight and compact. This does not happen with lithium iron phosphate batteries which are used in home battery storage.

You can drill into lithium iron phosphate batteries, try to set them on fire, whatever, and they generally just self-extinguish. Heck, they often are even still usable afterwards.

Your mining concern is only valid for the first product. Afterwards, lithium battery recycling actually makes better lithium batteries (faster charging and longer lasting) without any more mining needed. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...n-batteries-can-perform-better-than-new-ones/

Plus, if sodium-ion batteries ever become mass produced, then all your concerns go away. Sodium is cheap, plentiful, and can be made fire-retardant (yes, sodium explodes with water but that can be mitigated).

 

[William Gaatjes]

You are thinking of lithium ion batteries. Those are used in cars because they are lightweight and compact. This does not happen with lithium ion phosphate batteries which are used in home battery storage.

You can drill into lithium ion phosphate batteries, try to set them on fire, whatever, and they generally just self-extinguish. Heck, they often are even still usable afterwards.

Plus, if sodium-ion batteries ever become mass produced, then all your concerns go away. Sodium is cheap, plentiful, and can be made fire-retardant (yes, sodium explodes with water but that can be mitigated).

Do you mean LiFePo4 ? Lithium Iron phosphate is indeed a much more stable battery technology in comparison to lithium ion battery technology.
The battery energy density is lower for LiFePo4 but no thermal runaway during charging and more stable in general. Voltage is a bit lower 3.65V fully charged to 2.5V depleted. Depending on the manufacturer.
And LiFePO4 has a good number of charge/ discharge cycles. At around 1000 times before the capacity drops.
I have designed circuits at home and at work with this LiFePO4 battery technology.

 

[William Gaatjes]

You are thinking of lithium ion batteries. Those are used in cars because they are lightweight and compact. This does not happen with lithium iron phosphate batteries which are used in home battery storage.

You can drill into lithium iron phosphate batteries, try to set them on fire, whatever, and they generally just self-extinguish. Heck, they often are even still usable afterwards.

Your mining concern is only valid for the first product. Afterwards, lithium battery recycling actually makes better lithium batteries (faster charging and longer lasting) without any more mining needed. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...n-batteries-can-perform-better-than-new-ones/

Plus, if sodium-ion batteries ever become mass produced, then all your concerns go away. Sodium is cheap, plentiful, and can be made fire-retardant (yes, sodium explodes with water but that can be mitigated).

Yeah well, lithium battery recycling instead of mining. That kind of reminds me about solar panel recycling and wind mill recycling. And electronic parts recycling : It does not happen at the scale that is needed to really be green.
Most end up as landfill and/or is transported to a third world country and ends there as landfill or the locals try to capture the valuable elements under lethal working conditions .

As long as mining is seen as cheaper than recycling, we have the same problem as with flaring at refineries. It is not a conspiracy, it is people being unwilling to take that extra step because of a silly small view calculation.

 

[PowerEngineer]

I would have let it slide if your recommendation wasn't ~4 to ~5 orders of magnitude larger than the product described in the thread.

Well, my thinking focuses more to the product's process than on the product's size.

I have no problem with people implementing small-scale green energy solutions if they have the desire and financial wherewithal to do so. Even if these are not necessarily cost-effective given today's utility rates. It is a good first step for society as a whole.

I worry more about the next steps that involve regulatory requirements on utilities to convert all their customers to green energy, and how the added costs of complying will push up electricity rates. Rate increases aren't much of an issue for more affluent customers, but are a significant concern for those who are less well off. Seems to me that the societal benefits of going green will be lessened if we go about it in a way that makes energy too expensive to use for more people.

Which is my way of explaining why I am so focused on utility-scale cost-effective approaches to going green.

 

[PowerEngineer]

It is crazy. Totally insane. That is what you get when there is politicians that do not listen to professors of universities that actually have an understanding of problems that can and will arise.

The minute-to-minute balancing of power generation and customer loads on an electrical power system is a real problem that has been greatly exacerbated by the (mostly) uncontrolled generation from wind and solar sites (of all sizes). I need to point out, however, that imbalances between generation and loads seldom greatly effect voltage levels. Any differences between generation and load always result in changes in system frequency (generation > load = acceleration = increaded frequency and vis versa). It makes more sense to trigger inverter operation based on a (sustained) frequency deviations than on a local voltage measurement. The only way voltage levels would work the way you describe is if the system operators were taking steps to raise and lower voltages in order to intentionally manipulate the inverters.

There once was a time when utilities provided all the generation for their customers, and the customers only had loads. For better or worse, those days are long gone (thank you Enron) and now power systems have become wide open marketplaces with significant amounts of third-party generation and smaller-scale customer generation operating alongside utility generation. It turns out that neither utilities nor their regulators have been very good at understanding the pricing dynamics of the market rules they put in place. Markets are "maturing" some, but mostly through the process of trial and error. So it isn't too much of a stretch to say that today's electrical grid actually operates a lot like Wall Street.

 

[William Gaatjes]

The minute-to-minute balancing of power generation and customer loads on an electrical power system is a real problem that has been greatly exacerbated by the (mostly) uncontrolled generation from wind and solar sites (of all sizes). I need to point out, however, that imbalances between generation and loads seldom greatly effect voltage levels. Any differences between generation and load always result in changes in system frequency (generation > load = acceleration = increaded frequency and vis versa). It makes more sense to trigger inverter operation based on a (sustained) frequency deviations than on a local voltage measurement. The only way voltage levels would work the way you describe is if the system operators were taking steps to raise and lower voltages in order to intentionally manipulate the inverters.

There once was a time when utilities provided all the generation for their customers, and the customers only had loads. For better or worse, those days are long gone (thank you Enron) and now power systems have become wide open marketplaces with significant amounts of third-party generation and smaller-scale customer generation operating alongside utility generation. It turns out that neither utilities nor their regulators have been very good at understanding the pricing dynamics of the market rules they put in place. Markets are "maturing" some, but mostly through the process of trial and error. So it isn't too much of a stretch to say that today's electrical grid actually operates a lot like Wall Street.

Yeah well, there a lot of solarpanels sold in Netherlands with inverters and the voltage really rises depending on load and supply. Another issue is that those inverters also create EM noise . The radiated emission from these inverters can be enough to disrupt other (wireless) electrical devices. European EMC compliance seems to be an issue as well with some brand inverters.

The problem is there is no proper regulation present because everybody goes blind over CO2 and the climate and think solar panels are the solution. And that may partially be. But now we get voltage levels going haywire and then there is EMC compliance as well to worry about.

And then we have that wall street behavior.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

We have that sort of in the Netherlands, that people get payed for storage and producing electricity. And it is a crazy system here because the grid was not designed to handle all those solar panels with inverters. What happens here in the Netherlands is as follows : The voltage is 230V AC 50Hz. When the grid voltage rises because of too much electricity generating and not enough electricity consumption, to about 110% of 230V = 253AC, all solar inverters that measure this 253VAC are required to shut down.
For safety measures.

So when there is a lot of sun in the Netherlands but there is not enough electricity consumption. Solar inverters all shut down to lower the grid voltage to less than 253V AC. And in some cases and places in the Netherlands people with solar inverters have to pay money to the utility company. So, there goes the investments return...

And it gets even worse. People in the Netherlands get payed to burn through electricity, what happens in practice is that load dumps(Huge 10KW+ resistive heaters with forced cooling) are now connected to the grid in the Netherlands to lower that grid voltage to well below 253V AC.
So solar inverters shut down when needed and people are using electrical stoves and heating on mid summer days (+25 degrees celcius) because they get money to burn the electricity. Effectively being a load dump.
It is crazy. Totally insane. That is what you get when there is politicians that do not listen to professors of universities that actually have an understanding of problems that can and will arise.

The solution of course is to use home battery system with inverter or do something else with it like in the OP post, post#1.

So with that in mind, that this can also happen in the bigger cities of the USA. Making ammonia or gasoline from solar electricity is not such a bad thing. Since when you cannot store that electricity, be sure to not create a overvoltage and over capacity. The grid is very difficult to understand as seeing as electrical impedances. And politicians forget that too often.

All they see is stocks and commodities, the electrical grid is not wall street !

The govt should partner with cloud providers to shift loads to their grid (and others, for other participants) to 'burn off' power at a reduced cost. This is easily automated and amazon/MS would jump at the chance for more profits.

 

[William Gaatjes]

The govt should partner with cloud providers to shift loads to their grid (and others, for other participants) to 'burn off' power at a reduced cost. This is easily automated and amazon/MS would jump at the chance for more profits.

I do not know if that is possible.

The electricity grid is made up of different sections with different voltages, a factor 1000 difference. Low voltage sections( 230V up to 400V), mid voltage sections(3kV to 50kV) and high voltage sections(110kV up to 380kV) . The rising of the voltage to 253V AC is on low voltage sections , locally.
I would suggest that cloud providers do not get 230V AC directly, but mid range voltages and their own dedicated transformers (substations , that was the name i was looking for).

Cloud buildings are large enough to put the whole roof full of solar panels and have enough power. But they do not because cloud providers need a 24/7 stable power supply. Which solar is not.
Cloud providers in the north of the Netherlands, get power through windturbines and power stations.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The mine here is sometimes paid money to shut down during high peak times as they are a very big load. They have their own substation running off a 137kv line I believe.

Suppose they could do the same with DCs where they ask them to do a full or partial shutdown for a few hours during high peak demand. They would keep running off batteries during that time and possibly go on generator if needed.

 

[Brainonska511]

The mine here is sometimes paid money to shut down during high peak times as they are a very big load. They have their own substation running off a 137kv line I believe.

Suppose they could do the same with DCs where they ask them to do a full or partial shutdown for a few hours during high peak demand. They would keep running off batteries during that time and possibly go on generator if needed.

This is already the idea behind virtual power plants. People with smart devices can often enroll in programs that will raise the thermostat temperature for a few hours during periods of peak demand. I used to be enrolled in one when using an Ecobee - a few times in the summer, it would kick on to lower the temperature, and then it would set a temp about 3-4 degrees above my normal set point until the event was over. I could always override it or opt out of select events, and each year, they'd give me some money for participating.

 

[William Gaatjes]

How Solar inverters in the Netherlands fail Electromagnetic Interference Compliance and are easy to cyber hack...
I just post the link to the thread.

Page 4 - Ways to clean up pollution and live in a good climate.

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

 

[Red Squirrel]

The S in IoT stands for security.

 

[William Gaatjes]

The S in IoT stands for security.

Yes indeed it does IoTs

well the issue is, first the market is created and then some people in the government start to think after being notified for a zillion times that cyber security is a real issue and that certification methods are needed.

There are a lot of IoT that have default standard passwords and a lot of people choose easy passwords : admin, admin, 0000, 1234, for example or the default password is never changed : admin admin, 1234, 0000 or no password at all.
Since 2024/2025 the EU union has started with specific requirements with respect to default passwords for al kinds of (wireless and wired) IoT devices.
Think : wireless keyboards, wireless mouses. Wifi cameras. And so on.

edit: Addendum , forgot to mention encryption. Encryption will be required as well.

 

[Paratus]

Regardless of the efficiency devices that remove CO2 from the air are going to be needed. One to provide 0 carbon fuels for industries where electrification is problematic and two to slow and eventually reverse global warming.

The hard fact is we are going to have to overproduce green energy and/or nuclear to at something like the total amount we’ve produced over the last 50+ years to pull the CO2 out of the atmosphere that that energy production produced.