Washington University: Researchers create novel electro-biodiesel more efficient, cleaner than alternatives
https://source.washu.edu/2024/11/researchers-create-novel-electro-biodiesel-more-efficient-cleaner-than-alternatives/
Researchers in the labs of Joshua Yuan, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, and Susie Dai, at the University of Missouri, used electrocatalysis of carbon dioxide to turn carbon dioxide into intermediates that are then converted by microbes into lipids, or fatty acids, and ultimately became biodiesel feedstock. The process is much more efficient than photosynthesis and uses significantly less land than soybean-based biodiesel. (Image: Kainan Chen)
By Beth Miller November 15, 2024
Vehicles fueled by diesel lead to substantial carbon emissions that are challenging to decarbonize. In 2022, diesel fuel use made up about one-fourth of total U.S. transportation carbon dioxide emissions and about one-tenth of total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Joshua Yuan, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Professor and chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, and Susie Dai, a MizzouForward Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Missouri, and their collaborators at Texas A&M University, have used electrocatalysis of carbon dioxide to create an electro-biodiesel that is 45 times more efficient and uses 45 times less land than soybean-based biodiesel production. Results of their work were published online Oct. 31 in Joule.
“This novel idea can be applied to the circular economy to manufacture emission-negative fuels, chemicals, materials and food ingredients at a much higher efficiency than photosynthesis and with fewer carbon emissions than petrochemicals,” said Yuan, who began the work with Dai at Texas A&M University. “We have systemically addressed the challenges in electro-biomanufacturing by identifying the metabolic and biochemical limits of diatomic carbon use and have overcome these limits.”
The team used electrocatalysis, a type of chemical reaction initiated by electron transfers to and from reactants on surfaces of catalysts, to convert carbon dioxide into biocompatible intermediates, such as acetate and ethanol. The intermediates were then converted by microbes into lipids, or fatty acids, and ultimately became biodiesel feedstock, said Yuan, who is also director of the National Science Foundation-funded Carbon Utilization Redesign for Biomanufacturing-Empowered Decarbonization Engineering Research Center.
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They may very well eventually do this (I’m an advocate.) However, the technology to accomplish that is not available today (R&D continues) and, even if it were, we do not have time to either retrofit the various fleets, or replace them all.
Today, it is easier to replace their fuel with something which is either generated using electricity or (indirectly) from “green hydrogen” (like “green ammonia” for example.)
https://newatlas.com/energy/green-ammonia-primer-clean-fuel/
Today, “bio-diesel” is (essentially) being made from food.
This is not sustainable, but it is seeing increasing use, converting large areas of forest into farms to produce it.
Like “green hydrogen” this is a way to generate fuel using electricity. Unlike “green hydrogen” it also uses CO₂, and creates an alternative fuel that could be used by today’s fleet. (It too requires R&D.)
https://source.washu.edu/2024/11/researchers-create-novel-electro-biodiesel-more-efficient-cleaner-than-alternatives/
I will not give you my CV. I’m not looking for a new job.
You are quite presumptuous to claim:
I know these things all too well, I’ve known them for several decades. If you bother to read any of my postings that much should be abundantly clear.
While the supply of fossil fuels is indeed finite, that’s not actually the problem here. The problem is how much of them we are burning and how much we have already burnt. That’s more than enough to kill us, without burning any more. Burning all of the fossil fuels available will simply hasten our death.
For the past 800,000 years or so atmospheric levels of CO₂ have essentially never been above 300 ppm, well until the latter half of the 20th century that is:
Now, they’re rapidly heading for 430 ppm, with no sign of slowing:
That leads to heating.
It’s important to understand, the heating is not caused by our rate of emissions per se. Our emissions simply add to the level of GHG’s in the atmosphere, which are already far too high. The heating will not slow when we cut emissions. It will not slow until atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ are lower (or Earth reaches an equilibrium, estimated to be as much as 10°C above pre-industrial temperatures) and, at this point, due to present heating, there are other sources of greenhouse gases to worry about (like burning forests, methane releases from former “permafrost…”) — It may be out of our hands. We may have crossed a “tipping point."
“Green hydrogen” is not the answer, any more than renewables or nuclear are the answer.
James Hansen and his colleagues have made rather clear what “the answer” is:
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
First, underlying economic incentives must be installed globally to promote clean energy and discourage CO₂ emissions. Thus, a rising price on GHG emissions is needed, enforced by border duties on products from nations without a carbon fee. Public buy-in and maximum efficacy require the funds to be distributed to the public, which will also address wealth disparity. Economists in the U.S. support carbon fee-and-dividend [207]; college and high school students join in advocacy [208]. A rising carbon price creates a level playing field for energy efficiency, renewable energy, nuclear power, and innovations; it would spur the thousands of ‘miracles’ needed for energy transition. However, instead, fossil fuels and renewable energy are now subsidized. Thus, nuclear energy has been disadvantaged and excluded as a ‘clean development mechanism’ under the Kyoto Protocol, based on myths about nuclear energy unsupported by scientific fact [209]. A rising carbon price is crucial for decarbonization, but not enough. Long-term planning is needed. Sweden provides an example: 50 years ago, its government decided to replace fossil fuel power stations with nuclear energy, which led to its extraordinary and rapid decarbonization (Fig. 32).
Second, global cooperation is needed. De facto cooperation between the West and China drove down the price of renewable energy. Without greater cooperation, developing nations will be the main source of future GHG emissions (Fig. 28). Carbon-free, dispatchable electricity is a crucial need. Nations with emerging economies are eager to have modern nuclear power because of its small environmental footprint. China-U.S. cooperation to develop low-cost nuclear power was proposed, but stymied by U.S. prohibition of technology transfer [210]. Competition is normal, but it can be managed if there is a will, reaping benefits of cooperation over confrontation [211]. Of late, priority has been given instead to economic and military hegemony, despite recognition of the climate threat, and without consultation with young people or seeming consideration of their aspirations. Scientists can support an ecumenical perspective of our shared future by expanding international cooperation. Awareness of the gathering climate storm will grow this decade, so we must increase scientific understanding worldwide as needed for climate restoration.
Third, we must take action to reduce and reverse Earth’s energy imbalance. Highest priority is to phase down emissions, but it is no longer feasible to rapidly restore energy balance via only GHG emission reductions. Additional action is almost surely needed to prevent grievous escalation of climate impacts including lock-in of sea level rise that could destroy coastal cities world-wide. At least several years will be needed to define and gain acceptance of an approach for climate restoration. This effort should not deter action on mitigation of emissions; on the contrary, the concept of human intervention in climate is distasteful to many people, so support for GHG emission reductions will likely increase. Temporary solar radiation management (SRM) will probably be needed, e.g. via purposeful injection of atmospheric aerosols. Risks of such intervention must be defined, as well as risks of no intervention; thus, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommends research on SRM [212]. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption of 1991 is a natural experiment [213, 214] with a forcing that reached [30] –3 W/m². Pinatubo deserves a coordinated study with current models. The most innocuous aerosols may be fine salty droplets extracted from the ocean and sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats [215]. This approach has been discussed for potential use on a global scale [216], but it needs research into potential unintended effects [217]. This decade may be our last chance to develop the knowledge, technical capability, and political will for actions needed to save global coastal regions from long-term inundation.
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I encourage you to read the entire paper.
The paper is open sourced; I post links to it all the time, usually in the hope that people with poor comprehension can learn to read; usually a rather dubious wish.
Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)
I would question whether anyone who raises the point of Three Mile Island, some 46 years and change later and wants to talk about "lies" and irrationality has any kind of clue about the world at large, which is on fire because people who know very little about anything at all are very loud asserting nonsense, "real, stable, geniuses," all.
Of course, I am familiar intimately with nuclear issues, having downloaded, read, and seriously considered many thousands of papers, 12,117 to be exact, as of this morning, a number that was slight smaller yesterday, because this morning I was expanding my knowledge of Gurry-Darken maps of Pu metal mutual solubility generated by appeal to the Hume-Rothery rules, since I plan on conversing with my son over Thanksgiving on the subject.
I've been studying nuclear energy intensely ever since Chernobyl blew up in August of 1986. At that time, I was as dumb as any antinuke here; but I relieved myself of ignorance.
Of course, this is just a subdirectory of the larger issues associated with the environment.
Which in turn is a subdirectory of a directory devoted to all sorts of scientific papers, physics, chemistry, materials science, molecular biology, engineering, mathematics...etc...
I also have rather large directories for non-scientific topics, history, for instance.
I'm not a mumbling rube trying to make excuses for the complete and total failure of so called "renewable energy" to address extreme global warming, repeating rote and tiresome bullshit about batteries and hydrogen, carrying on about benchtop "breakthroughs" reported by science journalists, as if they're about to solve all our problems, and then carrying on about bullshit that took place in the 20th century, insipidly so.
I've spent a lifetime studying these issues in the primary scientific literature outside my day jobs, for which I have also worked the primary scientific literature. I'd like to think my work saved lives.
Now my life is reaching its end, and it is, I suppose sad, to understand - as I do - that it was largely all for naught; things got worse and worse with the same chanting bullshit being louder and louder and louder all the time.
I did raise a son who may carry some of the things I've learned forward. I hope and trust he will exceed whatever I have known.
As for being lectured from a rube level as to what I do and do not understand, well, it goes with the territory. It's not like this is even the thousandth time I've been exposed to these sorts of claims. Ignorance is nothing if not loud; after all this time, if nothing is clear, that is.
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.