How to Survive at Point Nemo? Fischer-Tropsch, Artificial Photosynthesis, and Plasma Catalysis for Sustainable Energy at Isolated Habitats

Inhospitable, inaccessible, and extremely remote alike the famed pole of inaccessibility, aka Point Nemo, the isolated locations in deserts, at sea, or in outer space are difficult for humans to settle, let alone to thrive in. Yet, they present a unique set of opportunities for science, economy, and geopolitics that are difficult to ignore. One of the critical challenges for settlers is the stable supply of energy both to sustain a reasonable quality of life, as well as to take advantage of the local opportunities presented by the remote environment, e.g., abundance of a particular resource. The possible solutions to this challenge are heavily constrained by the difficulty and prohibitive cost of transportation to and from such a habitat (e.g., a lunar or Martian base). In this essay, the advantages and possible challenges of integrating Fischer-Tropsch, artificial photosynthesis, and plasma catalysis into a robust, scalable, and efficient self-contained system for energy harvesting, storage, and utilization are explored.

Dynamic Modeling and Control of a Simulated Carbon Capture Process for Sustainable Power-to-X

The goal of this study is to develop a dynamic model for a Carbon Capture (CC) process that can be integrated with a water electrolysis facility. The possibility of operating the post-combustion CC plant dynamically is investigated. The final model successfully tracks the parallel hydrogen production, providing the stoichiometric required CO2 stream for the subsequent methanol reactor. A dynamic model is used to configure controllers and to test the unit performance and stream conditions for various set points. Through the transient operation, the required feed gas is provided while optimizing the solvent and energy requirements. It is found that the slowest acting stage is the reboiler with a time constant of 3.8 h. Other process variables stabilize much quicker, requiring only a few minutes to reach steady-state conditions. The hydrogen-tracking scenario shows that the carbon capture plant can successfully operate under varying conditions with a maximum CO2 output increase of 7% of the minimum flowrate in the representative 24 h simulation time. The output CO2 stream is maintained at the desired >98% purity, 25 °C temperature, and 1.85 bar pressure, which allows to successfully perform hydrogen tracking operations.

Power-to-X in Denmark: An Analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

Power-to-X is an upcoming sector-coupling technology that can play a role in the decarbonisation of energy systems. The aim of this study was to widen the current knowledge of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of this innovative technology in the Danish context by utilizing the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to evaluate and compare perception of academic and industrial experts. The results of this analysis indicate that the external factors such as current policy framework are more important than the internal technology related factors. Further, positive factors predominate negative ones, with academic experts indicating strengths as the most important category and practitioners’ opportunities. All experts consider the country being a P2X knowledge hub as one of the most important factors, and in the given context of the Danish energy system, wind developments and Danish industrial environment, seizing this opportunity could be the biggest enabler for P2X success.