Geek's Methane Economy.

[Geek Engineer]

http://www.eclipsenow.org/Solutions/NewEnergystats/MethaneEconomy.doc

The reason I was interested in this article was the fact that I had an idea a while back of buying some land in Wyoming and starting up a small wind and/or solar farm. The theory was to be able to make enough to live off of at least, and be able to have time and money to pursue other ideas eventually. I could start small just to produce enough for myself, and then build up excess power capacity in which I could sell it to make enough money to buy food and water etc.

The main problems were.

1) Cost a lot of money to tie into the grid.

2) Need to produce grid quality power, adds cost and complexity of having to buy wind turbines designed for the grid.

3) Last I heard in Wyoming the power companies are not obligated to buy the power back from you.

4) Thought maybe I could just split water and sell hydrogen made from the excess power, but who could use it? The hydrogen economy we all hear about appears to be decades off yet.

So now here is a new possibly that I didn't think of before... Methane!!! It turns out by using a Sabatier reactor one can convert H2 + C02 into methane and water. It also appears that once the reaction is started in a nickel catalyst at ~400C it is self sustaining and produces heat if I understand correctly, which I might find uses for if possible. Hence assuming you get the C02 from the air or from a source that would have gone into the air anyway the methane produced would be theoretically renewable.

Reasons why I think this new approach kicks ass...

1) No grid or power company to worry about. This opens up potentially cheaper land options. Not to mention the overall added costs, unhelpful state laws, and legal issues with selling power into the grid.

2) Don't have to produce grid quality power can easily make my own wind alternators much more cheaply. They could almost run at any AC voltage/frequency and just convert it to DC for electrolysis.

3) Maybe I could also sell compressed oxygen also or just use it for myself..ha ha..

4) I can use natural gas as the energy storage medium for my personal energy needs, don't have to necessarily heat things with electricity, use batteries, etc. NG appliances are commonly available.

5) As excess natural gas production is brought online it could be transported away and sold since a market actually exists for it.

6) I believe it is easier to retrofit a car or other standard combustion engines to run on natural gas than it is for hydrogen.

Pit falls... Darn still more research needed!!

Not sure if there are overwhelming legal issues with selling/storing natural gas, and if it would be profitable enough to make it worth it economically. Could a "little outfit" actually find a buyer for it, and would they pay the market rate for it? Of course I would wait to sell it in the winter.. ha. ha..

The other major one I see is getting the CO2 efficiently. Cryogenic separation would use more energy to chill the air, and possibly not have very good yield. I have seen something about using membranes to separate out CO2 that might work better if practical. What if I just buy compressed CO2 cylinders? Where does that CO2 come from anyway? I was trying to find out and in some cases it sounded like it some might come from burning and/or extracted from fossil fuels so it might not technically matter in the short term at least. Later I might be able to get it from power plants who are looking at sequestering the CO2 anyway..

[Geek Engineer]

Hmm.. It appears nobody took me seriously or they think I am a crackpot already..

[Conan]

youre hardcore

[Geek Engineer]

Thanks, I guess I will take that as a compliment..

I must be on to something now.. 8O

[Ka.avik]

Everybody's got their ideas about the energy crunch that's coming...INTPs probably spend more time than others thinking about such concerns.

Me? I'm thinking biodiesel, or else methane production via the old fashioned method (I do have 2 horses, y'know). Better yet, methane stove to heat the used cooking oil for biodiesel production. (hot oil is easier to pour, of course...just have to be careful with the sodium methoxide!)

Then, I just need to convert a BMW R1200RT into a diesel-consuming beast, and I'm all set ! BWAHAHAHA!!!!

...oh...your idea. Hafta think about it some more....but, and I stress this, maybe.

[Sue Denim]

Start with this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics).
---------------------
What you're wanting to do is 'un-burn' methane. When it burns, you get
CH4 + 202 -> CO2 + H20 + heat

As I understand your goal, you want to do the reverse:
CO2 + H20 + heat -> CH4 + 202

Back to the second law of thermodynamics, there will be losses at each step, so you'll never be 100% efficient. You'll have to add more heat energy to create the methane than will be given off by burning it.

So why not just skip this whole exercise and just use the heat source itself? There might be a convenience factor of having methane instead of some other energy source, such as the ability to transport it in pipes, unlike coal, for example. But as a solution for the relative scarcity of energy from fossil fuels, this doesn't really work as an energy source.

If this were feasable, the place to do it would be next to a gas powered electric or coal burning electric generating plant, where there's plenty of C02 coming out of the smokestacks. But that isn't happening, for the reason I described. What you're more likely to see the c02 being used for is pumping into oil fields to try to increase the rate of extraction from those fields. Of course, this is just delaying the inevitable collapse of those fields since oil is finite and non-renewable (exept at a very, very slow rate...)


BTW, the exact same situation exists with Hydrogen. Hydrogen is more like a battery than a "source" of fuel. The methane that we use in our homes is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of sunshine, stored in plants, then converted to short chain hydrocarbons by heat and time, near the core of the earth. So in that sense, it's a battery, too.

[SensEye]

Well not being much of a chemist/engineer my only thoughts are: "Geek has no idea how much captial investment would really be required to set this up. It will never happen."

But by all means, enjoy the theoretical discussion.

[Geek Engineer]

Yes I have lots of crackpot ideas that don't amount to much but this one was interesting... Maybe one day they will amount to something..

I could have missed something or there is some false chemistry claims being made in this article. First according to what was described in this article the methane synthesis being shown here as exothermic which means once the reaction is started it sustains itself. However, I did come across one article that said that it was very endothermic which would show Sue is correct that it would take more energy to convert hydrogen into methane. However, I have found a few other articles that back the fact that it is exothermic and they even talk about using the excess heat to drive other endothermic GTWS reactions that can create more complex organic fuels.

I think it is still highly plausible that methane synthesis should be an exothermic reaction overall. First, one should note that H2O is generated in this reaction. So there should be energy released from that reaction which goes into sustaining the temperatures necessary for methane synthesis to continue. Second, methane may not have as high of potential energy as the hydrogen. But what is gained is a much easier fuel to use and sell right now. I would be glad to switch to hydrogen when it becomes more prevalent in the economy.

I realized I should have included this other link but I forgot. I put it in a different thread as it probably explains the chemistry better. This sounds like it has mainly been looked into for Mars exploration missions.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~meyertr/rwgs/rwgs.html

Yes SensEys you are probably right I don't understand the capital involved, but I may be all wrong about this. Yet, I think it all this stuff I talk about seems possible, without going to extremes. So far it looks like I could construct a lot of the pieces with mostly DIY (Do It Yourself) components. So far I think I am going to look into building a small prototype Sabatier reactor to see if it can actually works. I still do still need to find out more about them first, to understand if there are any big snags to building one.

[Geek Engineer]

This link is talking about hydrogen, but here is an interesting debate over this renewable methane that follows if you are interested.

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=875

[Sue Denim]

This link is talking about hydrogen, but here is an interesting debate over this renewable methane that follows if you are interested.

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=875
There appears to be a lot of well thought points being made, but even so, I think it shows how complicated the issues are. There are some practical hurdles to making Hydrogen work, which leads people to look at other "fuels", which have hurdles of their own...

As a portable energy store, gasoline and diesel fuel will be difficult to replace, for various reasons.

BTW, RMI that they're referring to is Rocky Mountain Institute. http://www.rmi.org/
A key player there is Amory Lovins, who (co)wrote the book "Winning The Oil Endgame" available for download at http://www.oilendgame.com/

[cryokinetic]

Funny you should mention this...

One is in the initial stages of development in the desert just ouside my hometown.

Finally... something to be proud of in el paso (aside from the cheap booze and cheaper hookers)

[flan2dave]

The article sue denim posted suggested to use the power that drives the methane reaction directly so energy is not lost, but for geek's case, generating and selling power directly to the companies is not all that ideal. So unless I'm missing something, that doesn't really rule out the idea of producing methane on an individual level.

[Geek Engineer]

Thanks Sue for the links I was trying to look at those articles last night an my internet hung on me for some weird reason, and it was getting late anyway so I bailed.

I haven't found much information on how one would make a Saboteur Reactor yet. My friend has a TIG welder and he is probably going to let me keep it for a while as he won't have room for it at his apartment. I am assuming one would make this reactor out of stainless steel. He said you can weld stainless with a TIG, and it might be the only way actually. I would assume have to find somewhere to maybe find some small nickel metal beads for the catalyst to put inside. I wonder if I could find that at some laboratory supply place or something. Then, a heater coil that can handle those temperatures and maybe put it in a ceramic housing to shield it. I think the other things I can piece to together as well hopefully. It may not produce a very pure stream of methane gas, but I could improve the output separation as I went. I suspect it would be difficult to control the quantity of the input gasses at the correct ratio. So I would need to find a way to separate excess H2 on the output and recycle it. Sounds like there are membranes for that, but not sure how expensive that solution would be.

Well I am sure there will be hurtles, but it would be a fun experiment if nothing else..

Well all should go well as long as I don't blow up my house in the process.. Ha..Ha..Ha.. 8O

[Sue Denim]

TIG will weld stainless, but so will OxyAcetylene if you keep the mix just right. In a pinch, GMAW (MIG) will work to join stainless, but not at the purity levels you'd need. If you are going to weld stainless with TIG, you need to backpurge the pieces with the shielding gas (pure argon), otherwise you'll get what's commonly called "sugar" or crystalization on the back of the weld. It's a simple matter to split the source line, you just need a pressure valve to control the backpurge flow rate separately from the TIG valve.

http://www.onlinemetals.com/ sells stainless in small lots, and also lists some nickel alloy rod and sheet. I doubt the nickel is what you're looking for, though, as far as specific alloy, but I'm sure that somebody sells it... You'll need to be very specific of the alloy, most likely.

You can get a castable refractory to make a heat tolerant, insulated enclosure for your project. People use this for making metal melting furnaces for sand casting. This is a totally different application than what you're doing, but I think you'll get the idea why I mention it.
http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/

I don't know enough about the rest of it to comment.

[Geek Engineer]

Cool Sue I think these things will help out. Thanks..

Yeh, I still have some research to do and it might take some trial and error of course. This should be a fun winter project for me. So far I have only read that the reactor can use Nickel or Ruthenium as the catalyst. The latter for higher efficiency, but I assume is also more expensive material. I am not certain what catalyst configuration would be best. I may be wrong but I think in general the more surface area the better, but it is also a compromise on how much the construction restricts the gas flow. For simplicity I would like to use nickel in the form of a bunch of ball bearings and just fill the reactor with it, unless I find out that won't work well that way. I assume a honey comb type configuration is probably better because it has less restrictions, but would be more complicated to fabricate.

EDIT: Forgot to mention my friend use to work on pollution control systems for gas power plants, so he has a bunch of scrap stainless tubing they let him take away. He said I can use whatever I want of it... I also hope to enlist some of his experience....

[Geek Engineer]

I never thought I would be happy to see the headlines on a Denver newspaper yesterday. "Heat Costs Soar."