All of our problems are solved. British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' technology - Telegraph Or maybe not. The lack of basic scientific knowledge these days is appalling.
The company involved are in Stockton....about 10 mins from me. The air is that polluted round there from the petro chemical industry around there it's hardly surprising. They don't call people from Middlesbrough (a stones throw away) Smoggies for nothing.
i heard this on Radio 4 (sshhhh) last night. Apparently its straight up kosha. I didnt get all the details but it was to do with combining the hydrogen molecules in water vapour with the carbon dioxide. the invetor will probably go missing or decide that it doest work in the next 12 months.
Fuel + O2 = Energy + Water + CO2 (plus a few nasties which for this purpose we can ignore) This is an equation that can be reversed, but it takes energy to do so. Energy + water = H2 + O2 H2 + CO2 (from air, or anywhere else) + Energy = Fuel So yes, fuel can be made from CO2 and water plus energy but there is no net gain in energy terms. The 1st Law of Thermodynamics sates that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Energy cannot be made or destroyed, it can only change it's form. I am paraphrasing here. The US Navy persued a similar program using nuclear energy and seawater to make jet fuel but the prize was unlimited (within reason) jet fuel whilst at sea without resupply. Essentially they were looking at running jets on nuclear power via an electrical / chemical conversion process. BBC 4 recently did a superb program on Energy, what it is and where it comes from, it might be repeated. It contained the best explanation of Entropy I have ever seen or heard.
Here is the link to the program-me Johnv mentioned on the i-player, another superbly done educational programme narrated by Jim Al Khalili, well worth a watch! BBC iPlayer - Order and Disorder: Energy
Energy Density in a Vacuum How much energy is in a vacuum? Not your Hoover/Dyson/Vax, no - I mean, how much energy is there, sitting untapped, in a vacuum, that is, empty space? Theories vary. I seen estimates of the amount of energy in a cubic centimetre of vacuum ranging from almost nothing to sufficient energy to destroy the Milky Way Galaxy or even the entire cosmos. Bonkers stuff. No one knows how much energy is locked up in empty space. Even fewer know how it would be possible to extract it - preferably an infinitesimal fraction of it, anyway. Before I am accused of raving, check this out. Too techy for me but have at it.
But Stocktonites are not from Boro are really cant claim to be smoggies. They are north of the river so are more akin to Mackems in my view :wink:
I'm not sure how your view works, but Stockton is 4.7 miles from Boro and Sunderland is 27.1 miles away. There more smoggie, whichever way you view it.
They are north of the river therefore from Durham. Boro is south of the river and therefore in Yorkshire. Fact. :wink: Ps. And being a smoggy myself I can decide who is a "paesano" and who isn't :biggrin:
But neither are in Durham or Yorkshire...times have changed their both in Cleveland. Fact...as you say. :wink:
Of course you can synthesise hydrocarbons from basic elements, using a lot of energy. That's not news. If you had a vast amount of energy to start with, using it to make liquid hydrocarbons might be a feasible way of storing and transporting the energy. In the real world, however, fossil hydrocarbons are the source of most of the energy we actually use. So the original "news item", whilst not untrue, is meaningless, irrelevant rubbish.
None....but we were talking about the pollution in the air from the petrochemical industries around Middlesbrough, hence them being nicknamed smoggies and Sunderland being 27 miles away.
