
Researchers propose solar methanol island using ocean CO₂ - DoreenMichele
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/creative-thinking-researchers-propose-solar-methanol-island-using-ocean-co%E2%82%82/
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hirundo
100meter^2 x 170,000 solar panel units (to replace long-haul transportation
fuel) would be a 1700km^2 square, 41km per side. That's a bit smaller than
Fiji and more compact. If you add 50% for methanol manufacture it's almost up
to the area of Haiti.

So the oceans have plenty of room for it anyway.

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kwhitefoot
> electrifying trucks .. has proved intractable in the near-term,

Really?

See
[https://logisticsmgepsupv.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/supermark...](https://logisticsmgepsupv.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/supermarkets-
and-electric-vehicles/), [https://www.libertyplugins.com/blog/2019/06/07/byd-
electric-...](https://www.libertyplugins.com/blog/2019/06/07/byd-electric-
garbage-truck-now-servicing-seattle/),
[http://mechcrunch.com/2019/05/10/rigterink-logistics-
group-t...](http://mechcrunch.com/2019/05/10/rigterink-logistics-group-tests-
eactros-mercedes-benz-passion-blog-mercedes-benz-smart-maybach-amg/)

I don't claim they are perfect but it does seem not to be intractable.

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blacksqr
There's already a highly efficient solar-powered process for extracting carbon
dioxide from seawater called "growing seaweed."

It would be far more efficient simply to collect seaweed from the ocean and
put it through fermentation and dry distillation processes to produce ethanol
and other fuel products. No new technology breakthroughs required.

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blix
I do believe there is work being done on this. That said, removing carbon from
the oceans, burning it and releasing it back into the atmosphere feels a
little bit counterproductive to me.

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EugeneOZ
At least it will slowdown oceans acidification until people find how to give
enough power to the planes without liquid fuel.

In this particular idea I don't like the ship - it will pollute the ocean
while transferring the fuel.

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afiori
I ear a lot of talk about airplane pollution, is it actually a significant
contribution?

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EugeneOZ
Doesn't matter. Point is: while we need airplanes, we need to power them.
While we can't power them using "green" sources of power, we should use liquid
fuels. And while we need them, this idea (topic-starter) sounds reasonable.

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credit_guy
This sounds like a brilliant idea. Instead of off-shore wind farms, off-shore
solar power generation. Convert the electrical energy into chemical one
(methanol) and ship it to the consumers. No need for huge upfront investments
(those huge wind turbines must cost a pretty penny), or for large underwater
cables to carry electricity inland. These floating solar panels could be
deployed far away from maritime sea lines, like in the middle of the Pacific.
Plenty of sun. No problem with sandstorms, like for solar farms in deserts. If
a hurricane is forecasted, you pack up and move away. No need to buy the land
from owners who want to hold out for a better price. What's not to like?

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bsder
> What's not to like?

Salt. Salt makes operating things in the seas an absolute maintenance
nightmare.

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D_Alex
Oh, yesss. Also, bird poop. Seriously - it is already a problem for solar
cells on unmanned offshore oil and gas platforms.

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credit_guy
If this was completely without any obstacles, it would have been brought to
market about 50 years ago. There are obstacles for sure, but they don't sound
insurmountable to me.

Salt. Salt is a problem for anything that floats on the ocean. Plenty of
things do that, it's not such a deal breaker.

Bird poop. You need to either be close to some islands, or in the middle of
some migration line. In the Pacific ocean there are millions of square miles
that don't qualify for either of that.

Barnacles, mollusks, etc. Maybe you can get away with some special paints, or
with periodic cleanup. Mauybe you need to coat the bottom of the floating
structure with some film of pesticide-infused plastic. I don't know. But I'm
willing to give this idea a chance to succeed. What are the alternatives?
Floating nuclear power plants?

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D_Alex
>What are the alternatives?

This is exactly the right question.

Assuming that the goal is a reduction in atmospheric CO2, there are many
alternatives that are at least an order of magnitude more cost-effective. Of
those, more land based wind and solar plants are for now the best. The cost of
land generally is almost negligibly small - about 0.4% of total for a recent
project I looked at. Admittedly, this was in Australia, but given that solar
power stations cost circa $0.5 million per hectare in equipment and
installation, land (rural land of course) would need to be pretty expensive
before it became a significant factor.

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cheschire
What happens to sea life when we restrict the sun over a large area like this?
How much microscopic sea life would be killed off in enormous quantities, and
would that generate toxicity worse than the CO2 currently being absorbed by
the ocean?

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DougN7
These secondary effects are what I’m concerned about as well. Seems this would
create a dead zone.

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readams
Why not just do this on the shore instead of a floating ship with
unmaintainable floating solar islands? I suspect the more realistic scenario
though would be to use a huge nuclear power plant to make fuel by pulling CO_2
from the air.

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danielharan
Unless we have costs breakthroughs in nuclear, solar is going to stay cheaper.

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andromeduck
I doubt solar is actually cheaper for this process right now.

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mrfusion
Wouldn’t it make sense to build these on large lakes and skip the desalination
step?

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fernly
One reason that springs to mind is the shortage of large lakes near the
equator. Solar "lily pads" would be much less efficient on the Great Lakes or
Lake Baikal, and have seasonal swings of output.

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GlennS
The Great Lakes in Africa are close to the equator.

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na85
And they're one group of very few lakes which was the point.

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longemen3000
For what I know, about methanol extraction, it depends of various factors. If
we can sacrifice portability, we can just pump salt water to a facility,
extract the CO2, and pump it back. What I find novel in this approach is the
utilization of seawater for the carbon extraction, but the other steps are
known or in active research.

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wolfi1
I wonder about the energy payback time or in that case rather the CO2 payback
time. The CO2 released through production of silicon is not negligable (in
fact for every silicon atom a CO2 molecule is released regardless of the CO2
released during the energy production)

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URSpider94
I found an article from 2010 saying that the CO2 breakeven for solar PV was at
around the 3-year mark. That article mentioned 225 W panels, the state of the
art today is 400W with presumably the same CO2 load to produce. So that would
put the payback at more like 2 years. It would get worse again to account for
the energy losses in the desalination, CO2 collection and conversion.

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frankbreetz
This is such a novel idea. This is an example of why we need huge investment
in this type of thing(idk if you call it green). I would have never thought of
something like this, it won't impact the average person's life and it is
carbon neutral. If this exact thing won't solve the biggest problem of our
lifetime, something like it will.

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tambourine_man
>…and has an energy storage efficiency of 8% over a 20-year lifetime.

The concept is fun to imagine but these numbers look pretty lousy.

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sp332
The energy is free, so efficiency is only important for comparison reasons. Is
there something better we could be doing with that solar panel output? Solar
panels themselves are maybe 22% efficient to begin with so this process cuts
the efficiently to about 1/3\. Personally, I'm impressed that it's even
positive.

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_Microft
I couldn't find anything in the paper how or if the channels are filtered.
Microorganisms in the water would be subjected to pretty abnormal conditions
while being pumped through the acidic and basic channels, so I hope they do
filter the water well?

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moneytide1
Interesting idea, I wonder how it can be protected from rough seas?

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bamboozled
It says in the article that it would be built in areas of the ocean where
break wave heights don’t exceed 7 feet.

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hackerbabz
But is that just where wave heights _rarely_ exceed 7 feet? It seems like they
would still need some kind of safe mode to deal with once per year/once per
ten years conditions. Maybe the could fold up.

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moneytide1
All the land above sea level between 1'-20' soon (relatively) to be usurped by
the measurable volumes of ice being depleted already have lots of pipe and
structural (piles and beams) infrastructure protected underground and may
could be retrofitted to support the safe mode folding you are suggesting.

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manicdee
SpaceX will be looking for bulk methane and oxygen supply at their offshore
Earth-to-Earth transport system within the decade.

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infogulch
These floating fuel production facilities could be nice for ships too -
refueling en route means you have to carry less fuel and you run more
efficiently.

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degyves
The most impressive to me, is to read only a single comment worried about the
ecological impact and the sustainability

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LifeLiverTransp
Why not produce artifical steam - aka clouds when the wind is right and make
it rain over dry country?

