Liquid Fuels and Hydrogen All economic liquid fuels are hydrocarbons - molecules composed of carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms. The key to green liquid fuels is an economical, green source of hydrogen, a green source of carbon, and a source of energy to put them together in the right form. Hydrogen is also the key to any other benefits of a “hydrogen economy”. FPC’s system provides the essential requirement, high temperature heat. The high temperature heat allows efficient hydrogen production either by 1) a thermochemical process, or by 2) high temperature electrolysis with electricity that is generated efficiently. Economically providing hydrogen, heat, and electrical power, FPC’s system can provide the cleanest and greenest alternatives for liquid fuel production and smooth the insertion of fusion power into the energy supply. Hydrogen is the key component in the production of synthetic fuels and can be produced from SPS systems at a cost comparable to the cost of production from reforming of natural gas. The hydrogen can be used directly as a fuel source or it can be combined with carbon to form various hydrocarbons including gasoline, kerosene (jet fuel), or diesel oil. Since these latter fuels support the existing transportation infrastructure, are transportable and storeable, we intend to focus our hydrogen output on production of these synthetic fuel products. The source of carbon can be biomass, or coal, or the CO2 in the atmosphere. Evaluation of the technology for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere by the Los Alamos National Laboratory concluded that this technology is now mature enough that it is viable as a source of CO2. Since we have to dispose of waste heat in any case, why not use the waste heat to drive a cooling tower that processes a large volume of air and extracts the CO2 from it? Carbon from an atmospheric source is slightly more expensive than carbon from coal, but the use of atmospheric carbon means that the liquid fuel we produce would become carbon neutral – the carbon comes from the atmosphere and returns to the atmosphere again when the fuel is consumed.   In
principle, liquid fuels from biomass are “net zero” emitters of CO2. However, the cost of transportation of the biomass to a central major facility such as an SPS facility rapidly make the economic value of the biomass negative. Thus biomass Carbon is not a very likely source for our liquid fuel process. Coal is a viable source of Carbon for synthetic fuels and this was the source initially used by SASOL. But coal is a fossil fuel and thus its use to make synthetic fuels would make the product non-green. The
greenest kind of source of liquid fuel would use heat and Hydrogen from
a green source in a chemical process that combines the Hydrogen with CO2 extracted directly from the
atmosphere. FPC’s system provides the clean, economical, and large scale
source of hydrogen and heat. With FPC’s system, the chief questions about this greenest means to provide liquid fuels concern the economics of extracting the requisite quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere. Current CO2 sequestration research supports our contention that this process is economically viable. Most
hydrogen is produced today by “reforming” natural gas, a fossil fuel.
Electrolysis is a well-known source of hydrogen. Electrolysis is green
if the electricity source is green, but the hydrogen is more expensive
than that from natural gas due to summing the cost of the electrical
energy and the costs of the electrolyzer. A more recently developed process separates hydrogen from water
“thermochemically”. As this figure shows, the potential for
highly efficient conversion  Conventional fission reactors do not reach the temperature needed for the thermochemical process, which also limits the efficiency with which they generate electricity. Although the high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) might meet the temperature requirement, the HTGR has not been commercialized despite decades of development, and the problem of nuclear waste remains. Uniquely among fusion systems, FPC’s chamber system provides the high temperature heat required for the thermochemical process—while also solving or avoiding problems facing other fusion chambers, even though they produce lower temperature heat. By the same token, however, FPC’s high temperature also increases the efficiency of electricity generation. Copyright (C) 2011. All Rights Reserved |
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