This morning's news reveals that a British company is making petrol from fresh air! There are a number of articles about it, for instance this one http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html
'The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide.
Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier. The company, Air Fuel Syndication, then uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.
Company officials say they had produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside.
The fuel that is produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become “completely carbon neutral”.
The £1.1m project, in development for the past two years, is being funded by a group of unnamed philanthropists who believe the technology could prove to be a lucrative way of creating renewable energy.'
At first sight this looks as though it might spell doom for Bessler's wheel, however, the process has to be a viable commercial operation to succeed and to produce just 5 litres in 2 months does not seem too awe inspiring, but then this is just a test facility and something much larger looms on the horizon.
Can they produce petrol at a better rate than the current rate for a barrel of oil (42 US gallons and about 35 UK gallons) which is currently between $92 and $112 per barrel? Possibly, but the governments will still tax it to death. Of course the same goes for Bessler's wheel but it is the greener option, despite the claims that this new process is greener than anything so far produced. The carbon-neutral aspect of it could be supplied by Bessler's wheel and an electricity generator.
We must await developments meanwhile, on with the build!
JC
