Discovery could lead to sustainable ethanol made from carbon dioxide

[rangerrebew]

Discovery could lead to sustainable ethanol made from carbon dioxide
June 19, 2017


Most cars and trucks in the United States run on a blend of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol, a renewable fuel made primarily from fermented corn. But to produce the 14 billion gallons of ethanol consumed annually by American drivers requires millions of acres of farmland.

A recent discovery by Stanford University scientists could lead to a new, more sustainable way to make ethanol without corn or other crops. This promising technology has three basic components: water, carbon dioxide and electricity delivered through a copper catalyst. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-discovery-sustainable-ethanol-carbon-dioxide.html#jCp

[Joe Wooten]

Again, scaling up from a lab process to commercial scale will take at least a decade even if it is successful.

[thackney]

And takes more energy to produce than it contains...

Use whatever fuel is used for the electricity directly as fuel for the vehicle.  In the US, most of that is natural gas.

[guitar4jesus]

And takes more energy to produce than it contains...

Use whatever fuel is used for the electricity directly as fuel for the vehicle.  In the US, most of that is natural gas.

Yup.