An odd kink in the road

[Keith Henson]

I realize this is not strongly related to power satellites, except as
competition, but I am reaching out for any help I can get.

This is directly related to the current energy crisis, since it is a
way to make liquid fuels from any carbon source and renewable energy.
(It does need some scrap iron in the feed for the metal pool at the
bottom of the gasifier.)

I could use two things. Contacts with chemical engineers and anyone
who could give me a recommendation to arXiv, so I could post the
attachment where it can be cited. Any help or suggestions are highly
appreciated.

Keith

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Apr 8, 2026 at 8:58 AM Henrik Ohrstrom via extropy-chat
<extrop...@lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> This looks promising but sewage sludge is not likely to work well as water source, it could perhaps work as a carbon source but I can't in anyway see how contaminated water would do well in your steamgenerator.

The water from the sludge and any water in the waste evaporates in the
gasifier. The water, which is not consumed in the tar reformer, gets
condensed out of the gas stream, and that feeds the steam generation
pipes in the gasifier. So the sludge water gets distilled before it
hits the steam generation part.

> Anyway the base assumption of using excess solar energy to generate syngas do not need anything like sewage water to be of interest. It is a good start even if you assume that it is a finicky bastard operation that requires clean water for steam and a carbon source (waste) that has been sorted to remove PVC etc uncooperative materials.

One advantage of this system is that even PVC is ok to feed into it.
There are existing 100-ton-per-day gasifiers that eat PVC and clean up
the gas to make salt. They use plasma torches and are hard to scale
up.

> If the syngas can be transformed into methane and/or some liquid petrol lookalike that is an enormous upgrade to what's otherwise an rather unremarkable fuel for heating something.
> That's probably the limiting factor, can we produce more heat that generate electricity than just burning the waste neet?

Converting syngas to methane, diesel, or methanol are all
well-understood industrial processes. Look up the Sasol plant in
Qatar for diesel and the Great Plains Synfuel Plant for making
methane.
> If so we are in business, otherwise not so much.
> Can we produce methan/syn-avgas to a competitive price compared to getting it from a at the moment rather smoky middle east? Then we are in business there too.

The analysis makes a case for competitive jet fuel from waste. A
problem is that we don't make nearly enough waste to replace oil. But
biomass can be fed into this process in very large amounts.

> If the peace talks is sabotaged, then this will probably become all to cost effective :(

Maybe. This is a renewable energy storage project, and at the federal
level, only fossil fuel is favored. Still, perhaps possible.

Keith
> /Henrik
>
> Den tis 7 apr. 2026 01:41ilsa via extropy-chat <extrop...@lists.extropy.org> skrev:
>>
>> Can you send it to me in text I can't open the packet you sent me
>>
>> Ilsa Bartlett
>> Institute for Rewiring the System
>> http://ilsabartlett.wordpress.com
>> http://www.google.com/profiles/ilsa.bartlett
>> www.hotlux.com/angel
>>
>> "Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person."
>> -John Coltrane

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