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From: Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com>
To: yyyy@spamassassin.taint.org
Subject: Viridian Note 00328: Fuel from CO2
Key concepts: Nakamichi Yamasaki, hydrocarbon
generation, carbon dioxide, industrial chemistry
Attention Conservation Notice: Yet another
weird Nipponese scheme, about some miracle
gizmo that runs on pollution
Links:
Tornados in Britain? Maybe it really is the 51st State.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002362050,00.html
Newfangled suntan pill alleged to have peculiar side-
effects.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=18672487
See all those really bright places? Well, that's
where the Greenhouse comes from.
http://www3.cosmiverse.com/news/earthobservatory/0802/images/land_ocean_ice_lights_080602_1bi
g.jpg
The West Nile plague has reached Austin.
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17239/story.htm
---------------------------------------------------
Entries in the Global Civil Society Design Contest.
From: Steven W. Schuldt <swschuldt*mac.com>
http://www.americanrobotz.com/images2/Soon_GlobalCivilSocietyLaptop.jpg
From: Ben Davis <bend*earthlink.net>
http://www.digitaleverything.com/GlobalComputer.htm
From: Joerg F. Wittenberger <Joerg.Wittenberger*pobox.com>
http://www.askemos.org/
http://www.askemos.org:9080/RomePaper.pdf
From: Scott Vandehey <scot*spaceninja.com >
http://spaceninja.com/viridian/notebook.html
From: Bob Morris <bob*bomoco.com>
http://viridianrepository.com/GlobalCivil/
From: Anonymous
http://home.freiepresse.de/befis/zx2000.html
http://apollo.spaceports.com/~bodo4all/zx/zx97.htm
http://www.vkb.co.il/
From: Jim Thompson <jim*musenki.com>
http://www.simputer.org
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/07/05/india.simputer.reut/index.html
From: Mike Rosing <eresrch*eskimo.com>
http://www.eskimo.com/~eresrch/viridian
From: Till Westermayer <till*tillwe.de>
http://www.westermayer.de/till/projekte/02gcsdl.htm
From: Duncan Stewart <stewarts*stewarts.org?>
http://www.stewarts.org/viridian/GCS
From: R. Charles Flickinger <idlewild*mac.com>
http://homepage.mac.com/iHUG/GCS2000.html
From: Kevin Prichard <kevin*indymedia.org>
http://www.nah6.com/
http://www.nah6.com/nah6-h2k2_files/v3_document.html
From: Dave Phelan <dphelan*pavilion.co.uk
"Please find my entry here:"
http://www.btinternet.com/~dphelan/viridian/gcs-computer.html
"I'm no graphic artist == the feature list is the
important part of the design."
dphelan*pavilion.co.uk Blog:
http://www.btinternet.com/~dphelan
This contest expires in four days: August 15, 2002.
----------------------------------------------------
Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992620
"Carbon dioxide turned into hydrocarbon fuel
(((Please, no immediate lectures on the second law of
thermodynamics. I have plenty of those.)))
"16:00 02 August 02
"A way to turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons has caused
a big stir at an industrial chemistry conference in New
Brunwick, New Jersey. Nakamichi Yamasaki of the Tokushima
Industrial Technology Center in Japan says he has a
process that makes propane and butane at relatively low
temperatures and pressures."
Link: Yes, he actually exists:
http://www.it.sakura.ne.jp/~koatsu/c_journal/ab/1_10/01-2.html
http://www.itc.pref.tokushima.jp/English/eindex.html
"Making fuel from greenhouse gases
"While his work still needs independent verification,
(((okay, go fetch us some, then))) if he can make even
heavier hydrocarbons, it might be possible to make petrol.
It has carbon chains that are between five and 12 atoms
long == butane is four atoms long. ((("That's right,
Professor: I just hook it up to the sky and I make
gasoline!")))
"The work suggests the tantalising prospect that CO2,
the main greenhouse gas, could be recycled instead of
being pumped into the atmosphere.
"Many people have tried before to make hydrocarbons by
mixing carbon with hydrogen gas in a reaction chamber at
very high temperatures, but yields have always been
pitiful. Yamasaki has used hydrochloric acid as his source
of hydrogen ions. ((("But where are we s'posed to get all
that hydrochloric acid?" Yes, I know, I know.)))
"He bubbles the CO2 into a reaction vessel where it is
heated to about 300 C at 100 times atmospheric pressure.
The heat and pressure are low enough, says Yamasaki, to
make it feasible to scale up the reaction so it can run on
a power station's waste heat. (((Imagine the fun when a
giant tank of pressurized acid blows up.)))
"Iron powder
"Using iron powder as a catalyst, Yamasaki says he has
made substantial amounts of methane, ethane, propane and
butane, which he was able to vent off as gases when the
mixture cooled. If he can improve the catalyst's
performance he is hopeful of making heavier hydrocarbons
such as petrol, too.
"William Siegfried, who has lead similar experiments
at the University of Minnesota in the twin cities of
Minneapolis and St Paul, says his group was only able to
make methane at far higher temperatures. But his process
also used a nickel-based alloy as a catalyst, rather than
iron.
"Siegfried's group was investigating whether natural
methane deposits might have formed chemically with the
metal in rocks acting as a catalyst rather than forming
from the decay of rotting biological material over aeons.
(((Paging Thomas Gold! "Deep Hot Biosphere" calling on
line one.)))
"Unless Yamasaki's technology can make the more
valuable heavier hydrocarbons such as petroleum, which are
liquid at room temperature, it will not be much more use
than present-day bioreactors, in which bacteria that like
to feed on CO2 are induced to produce methane. 'Organisms
have a special talent for that kind of reaction,' says
Siegfried.
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
FED-EX IS HERE WITH
YOUR WORLD-SAVING
MIRACLE GIZMO
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O