Dude?

It’d be more accurate to say that they’re using petroleum as a battery for solar or wind energy that would otherwise go to waste. Not terribly efficient as a fuel source, but relatively efficient as a battery.

SoRight on November 29, 2012 at 11:53 AM

Yep. The big advantage of this (if it were to become somewhat efficient) is to be able to use intermittent electricity sources which can’t be hooked to the grid (since they are intermittent). I’d have to see the actual numbers on power required and all but this is one possible solution to the ridiculous uselessness of wind and solar energy for any input into the grid.

I would guess, however, that this process would still need its own steady source of electricity for the time it is running, so it might not be much better at using wind or solar. It depends on how much fuel can actually be produced for medium amounts of electricity and how flexible the process is to varying electric input.

Screw the BS global warming crap. This is interesting in its own right, though I tend to doubt it will end up being efficient enough for any serious implementation.

Of course, wind and solar, themselves, are okay for individuals to use as intermittent sources, if not great. It’s really the idiots who think that you have to use these methods for industrial electricity production to be used for the grid who really screw things up. Then again, leftists are always looking to pervert and screw up everything they touch.

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on November 29, 2012 at 12:37 PM