Thread: Future of the Australian Electricity Market

Graeme

I had seen the prediction. Even more weird! I am looking into it.

Regards
Paul

Some interesting news today.


Photoelectrochemical CO2-to-fuel conversion with simultaneous plastic reforming | Nature Synthesis

Researchers have developed a solar-powered technology that converts carbon dioxide and water into liquid fuels that can be added directly to a car’s engine as drop-in fuel.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, harnessed the power of photosynthesis to convert CO2, water and sunlight into multicarbon fuels – ethanol and propanol – in a single step. These fuels have a high energy density and can be easily stored or transported.

Unlike fossil fuels, these solar fuels produce net zero carbon emissions and completely renewable, and unlike most bioethanol, they do not divert any agricultural land away from food production.

While the technology is still at laboratory scale, the researchers say their ‘artificial leaves’ are an important step in the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy. The results are reported in the journal Nature Energy.

Bioethanol is touted as a cleaner alternative to petrol, since it is made from plants instead of fossil fuels. Most cars and trucks on the road today run on petrol containing up to 10% ethanol (E10 fuel). The United States is the world’s largest bioethanol producer: according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, almost 45% of all corn grown in the US is used for ethanol production.

“Biofuels like ethanol are a controversial technology, not least because they take up agricultural land that could be used to grow food instead,” said Professor Erwin Reisner, who led the research.

For several years, Reisner’s research group, based in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, has been developing sustainable, zero-carbon fuels inspired by photosynthesis – the process by which plants convert sunlight into food – using artificial leaves.

To date, these artificial leaves have only been able to make simple chemicals, such as syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide that is used to produce fuels, pharmaceuticals, plastics and fertilisers. But to make the technology more practical, it would need to be able to produce more complex chemicals directly in a single solar-powered step.

Now, the artificial leaf can directly produce clean ethanol and propanol without the need for the intermediary step of producing syngas.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Some interesting news today. Photoelectrochemical CO2-to-fuel conversion with simultaneous plastic reforming | Nature Synthesis

That sounds pretty good.

One can also drink ethanol of course, provided it has been suitably diluted with juice of grape or Hop & Barley matter. Matter of fact, I'm consuming some right now.

I hear that the truly dedicated only drink it after filtering through a loaf of bread, and from a bottle wrapped in brown paper.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

... One can also drink ethanol of course, provided it has been suitably diluted with juice of grape or Hop & Barley matter. Matter of fact, I'm consuming some right now. ...

??? You don't like vodka?

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

??? You don't like vodka?

Graeme, you are very welcome to filter your ethanol through a potato if you wish.
I prefer the loaf of bread filter myself (strictly wholemeal of course)

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Graeme, you are very welcome to filter your ethanol through a potato if you wish. ...

I was thinking more in terms of extracting the ethanol from the potato, FF.

well here's another one
Scientists Devise A Way To Harvest Energy Out Of Thin Air And It Changes Everything | HotHardware

"The air contains an enormous amount of electricity," explained Jun Yao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering at UMass, and the paper's senior author. "Think of a cloud, which is nothing more than a mass of water droplets. Each of these droplets contains a charge, and when conditions are right, the cloud can produce a lightning bolt, but we don't know how to reliably capture electricity from lightning." He continued, "What we've done is to create a human-built, small-scale cloud that produces electricity for us predictably and continuously so that we can harvest it."

some of the quotes are from a graduate student so I guess take it with a grain of salt.

HAB

Harvesting lightning bolts etc. seems a little ambitious, but it does bring to mind some phrases from my early NSW power station days. I am sure you will be familiar with, but for those outside the industry, but nevertheless very interested:

"One flash and you're ash."

"One zap and you're crap."

Regards
Paul

A little bit small (euphemism) but interesting:

Australia's first commercial vanadium-flow battery storage completed in South Australia (msn.com)

It appears to have some benefits over Lithium-Ion including recycling, longevity and inflammability. It is however unsuitable for mobile applications.

Regards
Paul

Not a glowing report this one:

GOT GAS? Putting the pin into that Victorian coal to hydrogen plan (msn.com)

Unless renewable energy is used to create the carbon capture, more CO2 enters the atmosphere from the process and it would be better to just generate power from the gas (or coal) itself. This is quite apart from the issue should the CO2 not remain captured! There are projects around to prove CCS can be done, but clearly the integrity of the CCS is lacking for the moment.

Regards
Paul

China is really getting into it: China on course to hit wind and solar power target five years ahead of time | China | The Guardian

Imagine what we could do....

274645824_674323043993521_8406870997821829378_n.jpg

One of the big complaints of batteries is regarding the waste at the end of their life. I have previously in BobL's EV thread, mentioned how far ahead Norway is of the rest of the world. It would appear from this article that these dead batteries are not the final destination after all:

Norway's quest for 'black gold' from used car batteries (msn.com)

Regards
Paul

Norway have the economies of scale to introduce recycling but until counties reach a similar level level of BEV use other ways are most probably the best approach such as re-use of batteries not good enough for cars and apparently using them as grid storage is a good approach. The installation can be made larger as more batteries become available but eventually of course even those need to be recycled and that will happen as the need grows due to more cars on the road.

Australia most probably has not enough used batteries or so you would think but Toyota along with Nissan have been replacing batteries in cars for the best part of a decade and I wonder where all those have disappeared to. I mentioned in a post to Bob's thread that I was aware of a BYD with less than a 1000km on it being written off and I doubt that there is any sort of formal structure in Oz to deal with cars such as that so that the battery is recovered.

The big reuse: 25 MWh of ex-car batteries go on the grid in California | Ars Technica

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

One of the big complaints of batteries is regarding the waste at the end of their life. ...

Thanks, Paul

When looking at electrical vehicles we have to be careful not to lose track of how profound the revolution will be. When IC cars became available 120 years ago, we essentially cloded a serie of industries - buggy whip makers, chaff producers, wheelwrights, stage coaches, etc - and replaced them with a series of new industries - car makers, repairers, servicers, fuel, etc. Not better, not worse, just different. (Remember, cars were greeted as non-poluting as they did not on the roads like horses!) Perspectives change.

But that Norwegian plant is a good start, but it is still only a pilot plant. "The Fredrikstad plant is a pilot project ... " Your reference. We still need the refineries to convert the "black gold" into the recoverable metals, and at an economic price. It takes time to create a new industry, and there will be false steps.