Recycled Carbon Dioxide Fuel System

Here's the problem with "variable energy" systems like wind and solar.

You may be surprised to know that for every wind/solar plant you build, somewhere a traditional fossil fuel plant is running without contributing any power to the grid.

This is because of physics. Power production must, at all times, equal power demand. Too much production and you burn out systems. Too much demand and you get blackouts/brownouts.

So, how do you deal with variable production and demand? The techniques are well understood, dating back to Edison's days. You basically always run your production facility so it produces a little bit more than you need, and dump the resulting waste power you don't use into a dummy load, where it's used up, usually as heat. Using predictive algorithms (simply looking at history and human behavior), you know that more power is used on a hot summer day than a cool fall night. You adjust your system to balance, cranking up the oil, coal, natural gas, hydro, or neutrons when you need them. You bring generators (and sometimes whole plants) that are idling into full production as demand increases. Run out of production, and you get blackouts/brownouts.

The problem is that it's not instantaneous. The fastest power plants (usually natural gas) need about a half hour warning to change production levels significantly. Older, slower plants can take hours to change. So, if you're running solar or wind on your grid, you're constantly watching the weather and your output. When either starts to drop off, you call up the fossil plant that's been backstopping them by idling, and tell them to ramp up their outputs to compensate. When the wind stops blowing or the sun goes down (or it gets cloudy/rainy), you cut off the wind/solar from the grid and rely entirely on the fossil plants.

The most fascinating part of this process for me happens when you predict wrong. Too much demand gets you brownouts/blackouts, but too much production means those dummy loads get hot--very hot--as they eat up the excess. In one case, the load is basically a bunch of copper "trees" that actually melt when they get too much power.

So, whenever you see a windmill or solar panel, even when they're working and producing power, somewhere, a fossil fuel plant is burning fuel that it wastes idling. Why not turn the fossil fuel plant off until you need it? Because, as I said, a half hour to change output is the best case, when they're idling. To bring up even one of these fast plants can take days to turn on from a cold start.

Enter this development, and things get easier and much more efficient. Being able to store energy as ethanol means you can smooth out your supply output, burning it as you need it so you don't need a natural gas backup running elsewhere. Heck, by their description, you could use it to produce vehicle fuel, thus saving corn to be used for something more useful, like feeding people or animals. If it works out, short ADM stock.

Having the wind stop blowing or the sun stop shining is no longer the constant catastrophe that it is now.