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Turning automotive engines into modular chemical plants to make green fuels (discussion: is this a useful tech?) (news.mit.edu)

submitted 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) by ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net to c/energy@slrpnk.net

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As per the title, I'm curious of your thoughts on this concept. Methane from landfills are already used as a source of energy in many cases, but according to the EPA, a tremendous amount are not, and contribute 14% to the US's methane gas emissions.

I'm not terribly happy how the inventors of this tech are trying to keep it a trade secret, and their estimate that an installation will cost between 1 to 10 million takes it out of reach a backyard solarpunk from taking advantage of it (though it sounds like it could be DIY'd with enough know-how).

On the face of it, if it makes more landfills become viable as a source of energy to reduce use of fossil fuels, it seems like it could be a useful tool against climate change. The best case scenario would be that a local energy co-op is able to afford the initial startup cost to get it operational, ideally using repurposed engines from used cars.

What do y'all make of it?

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[–] PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.works 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

"In the future, we’re going to need green fuels because you can’t electrify a large ship or plane — you have to use a high-energy-density, low-carbon-footprint, low-cost liquid fuel,”

Large ships are perfectly capable of being battery-powered. In fact, battery cargo ships might well be cheaper than oil-based ships: https://austinvernon.site/blog/batteryships.html

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 8 hours ago

Wow, that is a fantastic article and a terrific resource. @JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net, this might interest you as well, since all I could think of while reading it was your wonderful rendering of a solarpunk sailing container ship. The ideas about offshore cargo hubs to distribute the cargo with smaller electric boats as well is good food for fiction and art, methinks :)

Thank you for sharing it, Puddle!

So that's one use case down, leaving mostly just airplanes where that biofuel would be specifically useful.