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Fuel from solar energy and air - Finnish startup gets funding

The technology group Wärtsilä is providing 500,000 euros in seed funding to Soletair Power Oy, a Finnish startup company that has developed a concept to improve air quality in buildings by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) and converting it to a synthetic renewable fuel.

Based in the southeastern city of Lappeenranta, Soletair has tested a plant that uses solar power for separating carbon dioxide and water from the air, producing hydrogen, and then synthesising a crude-oil substitute from the carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

The company has now developed a device for installation in the ventilation systems of buildings.

As a fuel source it is not financial viable, but workers might like better air to breath in those office cubicals.

According to Petri Laakso the production of fuel is not, at least yet, a significant economic factor for the adoption of Soletair Power's system.

He sees the biggest immediate benefit in the improvement of indoor air quality by reducing the level of carbon dioxide. This, he says, could be a boon to companies in keeping employees more alert.

"For example, people can start to tire in a conference room when the level of carbon dioxide goes up. This is a way to prevent that by keeping the air fresh. Productivity improves when minds are alert," Laakso points out.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/fuel_from_solar_energy_and_air_-_finnish_startup_gets_funding/10740884

For more general reading on the topic of making synthetic hydrocarbons from air plus energy we have a thread with a bunch of embedded links to different technologies.

CO2+H2O+Energy=

EdwinSm wrote:Fuel from solar energy and air - Finnish startup gets funding

Based in the southeastern city of Lappeenranta, Soletair has tested a plant that uses solar power for separating carbon dioxide and water from the air, producing hydrogen, and then synthesising a crude-oil substitute from the carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

The company has now developed a device for installation in the ventilation systems of buildings.

As a fuel source it is not financial viable, but workers might like better air to breath in those office cubicals.

According to Petri Laakso the production of fuel is not, at least yet, a significant economic factor for the adoption of Soletair Power's system.

I looked at the source link, and unless I missed it, the article didn't say anything about an estimate of the cost to produce a unit of fuel.

Having a handle on this cost (say, once the process gets reasonably efficient and scales) might be a good indication of how large a fossil fuel CO2 tax should be, IMO.

IOW, a good target would be for what it takes to clean up the mess (for the CO2 component. Obviously, other pollution, wars, etc. have additional costs).

But it would be interesting to see -- is this a $5 US premium over a gallon of gasoline, or $50, for example.

Going back, I see a link from this article that points to another article about this effort, estimating perhaps $130 or $140 a crude oil BBL equivalent, for cost, between 2030 and 2040. This is an estimate from the research team, but at least it gives an idea of the magnitude of the cost.

If this is even close to true (let's assume the premium is really $150 per BBL), that would be a gasoline / diesel tax of about $5.00 a gallon of transport fuel (assuming the Wiki figure I get of roughly 31 gallons of gas and diesel produced per BBL of oil). Not exactly ruinous, given that they already have roughly this level of gas/diesel taxes in much of Western Europe.

Now, whether this could ever be realistically effectively scaled up to anywhere remotely close to producing 100 million BBLs of fuel a day is, of course, a whole different question.

Or even, say, a quarter of that if we burn no fossil fuels at all in several decades.