Rolls-Royce Touts Nuclear Reactors as Key to Clean Jet Fuel
In the event anyone thinks that the notion of synfuel generation from nuclear power is new ... it&#x27;s not.<p>M. King Hubbert, who first conceived of (and successfully predicted US) peak oil suggested this ... in 1962:<p>&quot;Energy Resources: A Report to the Committe on Natural Resources&quot;<p>On p. 139:<p>&lt;quote&gt;<p>Synthesis of Chemical Fuels. Automotive vehicles for both highway and air transportation are dependent for their energy supply upon the energy stored chemically in the form principally of liquid fuels, and, so far as can now be seen, will continue to be so. Heretofore these fuels have been obtained almost solely from the fossil fuels in which the energy was originally stored by photosynthesis. On the other hand, it has long been known to be possible to manufacture simpler but equally useful fuels by means of the schematic chemical reaction:<p>Energy + CO2 + H20 -&gt; Fuel + O2<p>This has not been done because the energy required for the reaction would have to be obtained by burning already synthesized fossil fuels.<p>[NB: It has been done, but generally in converting solid fossil fuels to liquid, e.g., Germany&#x27;s coal-to-liquids program during WWII.]<p>With the advent of nuclear energy this situation is drastically changed. Here, with an almost unlimited supply of energy potentially available, it would be a a comparatively simple matter to synthesize any desireable quantity of liquid and gaseous fuels from common inorganic substances such as water and limestone. Were this eventually to be done, our remaining fossil fuels, comprising already synthesized complex organic molecules, could be more effectively used as the raw material for an increasingly versatile chemical industry.<p>&lt;&#x2F;quote&gt;<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hubbertpeak.com&#x2F;hubbert&#x2F;EnergyResources.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hubbertpeak.com&#x2F;hubbert&#x2F;EnergyResources.pdf</a><p>There was a small bit of stir a few years ago when the US Naval Research Lab published research on the concept, also looking to use nuclear power, largely for <i>in situ</i> fuel provisioning for carrier-based combat aircraft.  Those papers only cited research back to the mid-1990s, making the concept seem novel.  I discovered it&#x27;s not, with active research dating to the mid-1960s at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the late Mayer Steinberg, as well as M.I.T., and the more recent USNRL work.<p>The underlying chemistry works.  Scaling the concept seems to be problematic, as well as economics, though that has more to do with the mis-pricing of fossil fuels than failures of Fischer-Tropsch, in my view.<p>I posted a number of items on it, including a literature review, here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;dredmorbius&#x2F;search?q=fischer-tropsch&amp;restrict_sr=on" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;dredmorbius&#x2F;search?q=fischer-tropsc...</a><p>Lit review:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;dredmorbius&#x2F;comments&#x2F;28nqoz&#x2F;electrical_fuel_synthesis_from_seawater_older&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;dredmorbius&#x2F;comments&#x2F;28nqoz&#x2F;electri...</a>