Saturday, June 1, 2013

Fastest way to LFTR adoption

It may be finding a way to make hydrogen cheaply and efficiently.  Why?

Let's skip trying to go all out and get completely carbon-free for the now.  Let's take carbon that is intended for sequestration and combine it with the hydrogen produced by the LFTR.  You can make methane and then methanol.  Methanol can be shipped to refineries that can make gasoline out of it.  Exxon-Mobil has a process that does this.

So, basically you use an existing carbon source and add to it a new process to make hydrogen.  Make methanol and ship it. You've a product that can mitigate carbon production, but not eliminate it outright. I'm guessing that all this could be done for less than a billion dollars for a pilot plant.

The goal would have to be methanol that is competitively priced.

Hargraves says that methane gas is the cheapest energy per kilowatt-hour. Let's say you take from natural sources and burn it. Capture the carbon dioxide and make methanol out of it for gasoline production by using the LFTR. This would be the cheapest form of carbon plus the already low cost of energy from the LFTR. You would avoid power production for the grid. Instead it would go for the plant. If successful, you could scale it up later.

The fundamental ideas are to burn up nuclear wastes, reduce carbon, and produce a salable product in the most cost efficient and fastest manner possible.  The key technologies are the LFTR and hydrogen production from the LFTR.  The LFTR and hydrogen production have been proven in the lab.  You just need to scale it up.


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