US Navy announces end to big oil

Started by AllPurposeAtheist, May 04, 2015, 12:45:47 PM

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PopeyesPappy

#15
Quote from: Sal1981 on May 04, 2015, 01:04:14 PM
That isn't a primary fuel source. Where does the energy to extract hydrogen and carbon from seawater come from? Running an electrocatalyst isn't exactly energy efficient.

You are correct that the fuel produced by this process isn't a primary energy source, but then again neither are the refined fuels currently used in internal combustion engines. In the case of the later the primary is crude oil and natural gas. The process has the effect of making sea water a primary fuel source.

I can see why the Navy would be interested in this process. They could build mobile refinery ships that travel with the fleet and eliminate the need to transport fuel for the conventionally powered ships long distances. Power for the process shouldn't be that big of an issue either. The A1B reactors currently being used in the Ford class carriers are rated at 300 MW each. That's enough power to process a lot of seawater. There are commercial applications to if you set up your refineries to run off solar.

Others are correct though in that without some type of carbon sequestration when you burn the final product this energy source doesn't appear to help much with the issue of anthropogenic climate change.
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Gawdzilla Sama

Anywho, if we can produce combustible fuel from a process that is powered by reactors it might be worthwhile.
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stromboli

The engineers on the Washington touted the reactors S5W (Westinghouse) at being able to power every city around where we were moored. Don't know the rating, but I know the supercarriers have multiple reactors, so the output would be more than sufficient. What I don't get is what type of fuel- diesel? Some ships are powered by gas turbines, others diesel, so I would like to see specifically what they mean by fuel. If they are talking about fuel for the aircraft, again you have more than one type. JP-4 is a 50-50 gasoline-kerosene fuel. I'd like to see some specifics.

PopeyesPappy

The Enterprise had 8 reactors. Everything built since only has two larger ones. The new ones on the Ford Class carriers are a lot bigger than anything in the Nimitz class boats. More power was needed for stuff like rail guns, magnetic catapults, super computers and streaming porn broadband communications.

Gas turbines, like diesel engines, are pretty flexible when it comes to fuel. Most of them will burn anything from natural gas to used motor oil with little to no modification to the engine itself, but you might need to make some changes to the fuel system like injectors or ECU mapping to make different types of fuel burn efficiently.
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