Turning automotive engines into modular chemical plants to make green fuels
news.mit.edu
MIT spinout Emvolon is repurposing automotive engines to create mini chemical plants next to sources of methane to generate green methanol and other chemicals.

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?

  • PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    27 days ago

    "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.netOPEnglish
      0·
      27 days 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.

      • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net
        3·
        24 days ago

        Thanks for bringing me in! Both these articles are great, and both are good additions to resource lists I’ve put together for solarpunk writers/artists - I’ve added the auto engine one to my list of alternative uses for car parts, and the battery ship info to my nautical solarpunk piece. Thanks again!

        • PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          24 days ago

          A port is a slot for ships. Really big ships requires really big slots. The biggest modern ships are over 500 meters long. And dry docks require you to float the ship in, then seal it in and be able to drain the water out - given that those ships are ~50m wide, you’re talking about a huge construction project just to serve one ship at any given time. Turnaround for ships can be hours or days, so you might want multiple bays.

          It might well be cheaper, to just have a small ship with a crane or something. Then you don’t need to build a 500mx50m swimming pool. In imperial, that’s 20 olympic swimming pools.