Fuel from Electricity

[Webstral]

Several times in the past I have mentioned the idea of turning electricity into fuel for post-Exchange vehicles and generators, albeit not diesel or gasoline. In the real world, I have been advocating transitioning from fossil fuels for electricity and transportation to renewables and thorium nuclear for electricity and synthetic natural gas for transportation, heating, and storing electricity from renewables. The Germans are already doing this on a significant scale.

http://www.global-economic-symposium...rgies-into-gas

Now if we substitute a functional nuke plant into this equation, we get an output of synthetic natural gas (syngas) that can be used to fuel vehicles, though not without serious modification to the engines. Another possibility is using this energy to synthesize ammonia. Ammonia can be burned in a gasoline or diesel engine with modest modifications.

I'm kind of bummed that the Germans are taking the lead on this. While I realize that they have more motive than we do to replace imported energy with domestic energy, I'm unhappy that they are taking the lead in this area. On the topic of Russian leverage in Europe, turning renewables into SNG has the potential to eliminate European dependence on Russian natural gas AND their dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

[adimar]

This is not the first we heard of something like that.
The us navy has a project to create jet fuel from seawater: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5113822.html
The benefits for an aircraft carrier which has virtually unlimited supply of energy and only limited space to store jet fuel is obvious.
Wikipedia states that a nuclear aircraft carrier would function for upto 25 years until it's nuclear power plant dies.
(lets say 12 years remaining until next overhaul is needed).
The implications for tw2k scenario is immense.
What i'm not sure is why would there be any nuclear aircraft carriers left after the war. They are prime targets who can't really be defended in a full blown nuclear war scenario.


Adi

[unkated]

Originally Posted by adimar

What i'm not sure is why would there be any nuclear aircraft carriers left after the war. They are prime targets who can't really be defended in a full blown nuclear war scenario.

Except, of course, that the Twilight War is not a full blown nuclear war.

And while some of the USN's carriers might be hit, the likely hood of all of them being sunk is kind of ludicrous given a mid-eighties naval balance. There just wasn't enough Soviet naval strike capability available world wide. It gets much worse in a V2 world as the Soviet navy rusted.

On top of that, these are very large targets to try to destroy. And even a damaged CVN without aircraft would be extremely useful.

It's one of the major holes in any version of T2K.

Uncle Ted

[unkated]

Originally Posted by Webstral

Now if we substitute a functional nuke plant into this equation, we get an output of synthetic natural gas (syngas) that can be used to fuel vehicles, though not without serious modification to the engines.

Not as much as you might think. My son is a mechanical engineering grad student studying being able to use NG and propane in mildly modified internal combustion engines.

Uncle Ted

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by unkated

Not as much as you might think. My son is a mechanical engineering grad student studying being able to use NG and propane in mildly modified internal combustion engines.

That's very encouraging!

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Just to add to what unkated mentioned, conversion is not as difficult as you might think. Here in Australia where our fuel prices are typically double or triple what you pay in the USA, the conversion of cars to LPG is quite common and it's been happening for decades.
For example, during the mid-80s my father was a courier driver and he had his van converted to bi-fuel (petrol & LPG). For engines made before the introduction of complex computerized management systems, engines can be converted to bi-fuel by most competent mechanics.

[Webstral]

Even more encouraging!