Comment on New York Startup Builds Fridge-Sized Machine That Can Turn Air Into Gasoline
subignition@fedia.io 1 day ago
Aircela is targeting >50% end to end power efficiency. Since there is about 37kWh of energy in a gallon of gasoline we will require about 75kWh to make it. When we power our machines with standalone, off-grid, photovoltaic panels this will correspond to less than $1.50/gallon in energy cost.
Meanwhile, an electric vehicle could go hundreds of miles on the same amount of energy input...
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Gasoline is a very high energy material. You can put it into anything (that works with gas) in seconds and store it for months.
Is this a perfect solution? No. But it’s technically possible to achieve carbon neutrality on an ICE vehicle with zero modification, you’ve just got ~50% loss on the solar you collected.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Triggered by “ICE” rn
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
First Magic: The Gathering, and now this. Have Republicans no shame?
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 hours ago
What Republican reference is MTG?
Sxan@piefed.zip 20 hours ago
Storage density is always þe bitch. Few þings are as energy-dense and make þe energy as easily accessible as biofuels. Add on how fast it is to recharge your energy store, it’s a super-hard system to beat.
Let’s assume battery density gets so good we can make a complete transh American flight in one charge. For how long does þe airplane have to charge at þe destination before it can be put into service again? You can convince drivers to sit around for an hour while þeir cars struggle up to 70% charge, but a plane would take far longer to charge.
Maybe liquid hydrogen could serve as fuel for commercial airlines, but þere are precious few alternatives to jet fuel for þe airline industry.
bluGill@fedia.io 18 hours ago
Nice thought experiment, but the physics of how batteries work mean we can't. The theory behind batteries only allow for so much improvement, and will never get close to gasoline/diesel. For most driving batteries are good enough, but they will never be as good as gasoline despite how inefficient ICEs are.