Three Welsh inventors are touting their Greenbox system that would replace car exhaust systems with an emissions capture system. It uses algae to absorb the emitted gases and hold them inertly so that the boxes can be easily transported for centralised processing of the car wastes.
The three, who stumbled across the idea while experimenting with carbon dioxide to help boost algae growth for fish farming, have set up a company called Maes Anturio Limited, which translates from Welsh as Field Adventure.
[…]
Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel.This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again.
The process also yields methane gas and fertiliser, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain’s auto emissions would take up around 400 hectares.
The three estimate that 10 facilities could be built across the UK to handle the carbon dioxide from the nearly 30 million cars on British roads.
It’s a damn fascinating idea, so long as they can make replacing the box each time you fill up the tank a simple enough clickety-click type procedure.
Iechyd da.
Algae for biodiesel has been around for quite some time. In WA at Lucky bay a biodiesel mob has been experimenting for at least 15 years I know of (I applied for a job there when they started up).
If as you say they can make it easy to switch in and out (or even automated) it would probably catch on.
Release the hounds.
As mole has noted, the key technical breakthrough in their system is a way to efficiently extract and store CO2 from car exhaust, not subsequently turn it into biodiesel. That’s being done with coal plant exhaust right now.
That is, if they really do have an efficient method to do so. Their announcement is almost devoid of technical detail as to how this is to be achieved. One of the key problems is storing the CO2. Aside from the inconvenience of it being a gas at standard temperatures and pressures, there’s the not insubstantial problem of it being over three times as heavy as the petrol from which its carbon component came. Say you’ve got a 50 litre fuel tank. The CO2 storage tank, when full, will contain roughly 150 kilograms of CO2, before you’ve even accounted for the mass of the CO2 extraction gear.
Then you’ve got the question of what form you’re going to store the CO2 in. It needs to be stored in a relatively dense form. The ultimate in compact storage would be to solidify the CO2 as dry ice. Then you’d end up with something around the same size as a fuel tank. But, clearly, that’s not practical (the energy required to freeze CO2 would be enormous), so whatever storage method they’re proposing would be even bulkier.
If their CO2 extraction method is so good, the obvious place I’d be intending to apply it first is in stationary energy applications, rather than in cars, where there is huge demand for improved such technology and the issues with CO2 storage are much less of a problem.
Finally, the combination of massive coverage in the mainstream media combined with bugger-all detail about how it all works is the pattern typically ascribed to technological snake oil salespeople, not serious startup companies.
While it would be wonderful if this works, don’t get your hopes up.
I read last year (but have never managed to find the follow-up) that this exact technology is going to be applied to the exhaust stack of one of the La Trobe valley generators shortly. Basically, you’ve got heat and CO2, add sunlight, water and a few micronutrients and you get biodiesel and stockfeed. Uses a little extra water but not too bad.
Still no idea who’s doing this.
Of course, this only allows you one extra bite at the carbon before it ends up in the atmosphere - at very best, a >50% reduction.
Off-topic, how does one pronounce Cymru? Someone said it is more like Kim-ree.
“how does one pronounce Cymru? Someone said it is more like Kim-ree.”
“Cymru” is the name of Wales as a country; “Cymry” is the name of the Welsh as a people. It’s thought by some that the “cym” part is cognate with Latinistic I-E words like “cum” or “com” (with/together) and that “cymry” meant something like “the compatriots” or “those who [go or stand] together”. It came into more frequent usage once the Welsh began to encounter the English/Germanic invaders. Before that, they called themselves a word similar to “Britons/Brythons/Bretagnais”; i.e., it is the indigenous Celts of the British islands who are, strictly speaking, Britons. The English, from a technical standpoint, are English, not British.
Robert Merkel’s points are well taken. Still (just to be on the safe side) — all the same, release the hounds.
The English, from a technical standpoint, are English, not British.
I think there’s been enough cross-fertilisation over the past ~1500 years to overcome any of those distinctions. Many of the native ‘british’ stayed put on their lands when the saxons invaded, meaning clear distinctions of that sort are historically interesting but not actually applicable.
But, is it a hard C or soft, and the U, how is that said?
Gogs, feh.
Gogs was art
“…meaning clear distinctions of that sort are historically interesting but not actually applicable.”
Valid point.
Have the Ethnographic-Historical Research Division killed.
Better still, have them turned into oil.
‘gog’ means north, Gogs are people from North Wales. (Hence the claymation show name)
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
…a name which was, of course, fabricated in the 19th century in order to attract tourists.
“Come to North Wales, see our… name.”
Wilful,
There’s a team at Monash working on something similar, I think, and they may well have a trial version installed somewhere.
There’s also a US company called GreenFuel, that has a trial version of something very similar installed at a 20MW cogeneration power station at MIT in the US.
There is lots of research into similar ideas for stationary technologies, particularly big power stations. However, I have the same reaction as Robert - I simply can’t imagine how you could overcome the essential physical problems when applying it to a vehicle given the size of capture tank required. I’m very suspicious.
On-topic: again, what Robert Merkel said.
Off-topic (ie, Welsh Phonetics 101):
“Cymru” = name of country. “Cymraeg” = name of language, adjective describing nationality.
wilful:
“c” in Welsh is always “hard” (ie, velar stop) except when part of “ch” (pronouned as in GHerman or Gaelic). “k” is not used in native Welsh words.
“y” is a central vowel which when stressed is close to Strine/Southern English “cut”, but when unstressed is closer, more i-like and very close to the vowel in the “jis’ a goldarn’ minute” pronunciation of “just” or the Russian vowel transcribed as “y”.
“u” is always like said centralised “i”. If you want an “oo” sound in Welsh, you write it “w”.
Hence “Cymru” is pronounced approximately “COME-ree” (International Phonetic Alphabet approx. /’k^mri/, where ‘^’ = upside down ‘v’ and ‘i’ should have a strikethrough) with a slight guttural quality to the “ree”, as well as a properly rolled “r”.
“Cymraeg” is “come-REIG” in which “REIG” rhymes with the first syllable of “tiger”. IPa is less ambiguous: “/k^m’raig/).
Zarquon: the adjective for “North” is “gogledd”, hence “gogs”, a term only used by perfidious Southerners.
The full explanation of the Llanfair PG village name is at the wikitravel article.
It can be seen that ‘North” does not feature in it - Welsh has many words with the syllable “go” (“ogof” = “cave”, “goch” = “red”…)
NB: the Great Welsh Shibboleth “ll” is neither difficult to pronounce, nor “thl” or “cl” as claimed by the more cloth-eared popular guides. It is “hl”. Which admittedly takes some getting used to at the end of a syllable…
Iechyd da!
Sorry, my title should be written Trefscu…diawl, mun, we’re clever buggers, us Welsh.