Carbon in the atmosphere is a major driver of climate change. Now researchers from McGill University have designed a new catalyst for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into methane – a cleaner source of energy – using tiny bits of copper called nanoclusters. While the traditional method of producing methane from fossil fuels introduces more CO2 into the atmosphere, the new process, electrocatalysis, does not. “On sunny days you can use solar power, or when it’s a windy day you can use that wind to produce renewable electricity, but as soon as you produce that electricity you need to use it,” says Mahdi Salehi, Ph.D. candidate at the Electrocatalysis Lab at McGill University. “But in our case, we can use that renewable but intermittent electricity to store the energy in chemicals like methane.”
By using copper nanoclusters, says Salehi, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere can be transformed into methane and once the methane is used, any carbon dioxide released can be captured and “recycled” back into methane. This would create a closed “carbon loop” that does not emit new carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The research, published recently in the journal Applied Catalysis B: Environment and Energy, was enabled by the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). The team plans to continue refining their catalyst to make it more efficient and investigate its large-scale, industrial applications. Their hope is that their findings will open new avenues for producing clean, sustainable energy.
That makes no sense…
Australia keeps less than 21 days of petrol of all types. Why would we need to store months? This seems like one of those silly arguments where it’s assumed incorrectly that the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing (which only happens in limited locations).
And when I say including undiscovered, I mean its only getting better. For grid energy storage, energy density isn’t an issue. Energy density is ONLY an issue for transportation and phones. We just need to scale up the technology now, and thats already rapidly happening.
This entire thing comes down to efficiency at the end of the day. The efficiency of the conversion here is 85%, and you still need to convert it back into energy (which is hugely inefficient). Even if converting it back to energy is 75% efficient (it’s likely not), that’s only 64% efficient. There will also be methane leaks in the system too, so you will lose more.
Batteries are 94%. Even Vanadium Redox Flow is 75-90%. There’s plenty of low density low cost efficient batteries (especially now Sodium batteries are available)
Also…
“If we use methane as is, we’ve accomplished this” - You can’t just swap current products with methane… Even if you did, petrol engines are totally inefficient. We’re likely talking not even talking 50% efficient. Fuel cell engines overall are only 60% efficient.
“Replacing wood for heating”. We already HAVE a solution for heating. Burning methane is less than 100% efficient max. Heat pumps are already at 500% efficiency and the efficiency is growing. Why would anyone want to use gas heaters? With heat pumps, you pour in 1kwh of energy, and get 5kwh of heat. With Gas heating, you pour in 1kwh of gas, and maybe get 0.9kwh of energy (or at best 0.97). You CAN’T get better than 1kwh
Why would you want to store it like oil? Oil is toxic… And, burning it is inefficient.
This has it’s applications, but its likely more competing with Hydrogen, NOT batteries. Also, this is still a research paper, not a commercial product. By the time it’s commercial, batteries might be 50% cheaper again…