Kenneth Chang, a New York Times science reporter, wrote an article titled “Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline” about a laboratory process for making fuel from carbon dioxide. Béla Lipták took issue with it, and the exchange ran for five rounds; personal phone numbers have been omitted.

Béla Lipták (1):

RE: Kenneth Chang: “Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline”

The following statements are wrong: The range of electric and fuel cell cars is in hundreds, not tens of miles. Fuel cell engines have twice the efficiency as gasoline ones and emit distilled water only. Generating hydrogen from water does not require a nuclear power plant, only collecting solar energy which is free. As the experience with space exploration and other industrial applications prove, hydrogen is safe both to store and to transport.

It takes only 1% of the Sahara (or other arid areas such as the American Southwest) to produce enough solar electricity to meet the global electric energy demand. The building of a solar-hydrogen power plant does not cost more than building an unsafe nuclear or a carbon emitting fossil plant, and once it is built, both the fuel cost and the emission are zero.

The time for the debate is over, it is time for action. What we need is to build the world’s first full size solar-hydrogen demonstration plant and thereby prove both its feasibility and cost.

— prof. Béla G. Lipták, President, Lipták Associates PC, Editor of Environmental Engineers’ Handbook

Kenneth Chang (1):

Most electric cars built to date have had shorter range. I did not say otherwise. I said gasoline is more energy dense than hydrogen, which is true. A fuel cell is more efficient than an internal combustion engine — but you could have a gasoline-powered fuel cell as well. I didn’t say generating hydrogen required a nuclear power plant, but nuclear power is the most economical option at this point. (Solar energy is not free. The panels are expensive and the land taken up is also a cost.) “Once built” is a huge, expensive caveat, not to mention building all of the pipelines and refrigeration systems and everything else to move the hydrogen around.

Béla Lipták (2):

Nuclear energy is exhaustible, we have less Uranium than coal. As I said in my previous letter, this process is only an untested laboratory theory, not even a pilot plant exists. Fusion reactors operate at millions of degrees temperature. The only safe fusion reactor is the Sun. You ask why no solar-hydrogen plant has been built to date. The answer is obvious: because it is not in the interest of the oil, coal, nuclear or the military industries. As to the military-industrial complex, we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet 25 times over, yet we (USA) are spending nearly $1 trillion on the military and wage “oil wars” while a few % of the military budget would finance the transformation to an inexhaustible and clean solar-hydrogen economy. My book on all these topics comes out in May (published by CRC Press), you might want to read it.

Kenneth Chang (2):

Again, I did not write hydrogen (e.g. fuel cell) powered cars had the range problem. I said electric (battery powered) cars did. […] I’m not disagreeing that all of the above would be major issues before such a nuclear-powered plant would be built. But the initial capital costs of solar are prohibitive right now, which is why no one is building this in the Sahara. […] It seems pretty clear that ultimately you’ll need one and/or the other to really solve the energy/global warming problem.

Béla Lipták (3):

Not so. The Oláh methanol process works ONLY with concentrated CO2, which assumes the existence of a fossil fuel plant, and fossil fuels are exhaustible. This process CANNOT take CO2 from the air. So when methanol is burned in a car, the emission is CO2 — the process is NOT carbon neutral. What there will be is energy wars, and according to my calculations the transition to the solar-hydrogen economy will take 50–100 years, so we don’t have 20 years to waste.

Yes, I made the calculations; they are long, complex and will be published in May. Just as with computers, both the solar cell (printed nanosolar, etc.) and the fuel cell (1/10th cost by thin diaphragm, plus 1/2 cost by reversibility) costs will drop drastically when mass production starts. […] Once the transition is done, we have an inexhaustible and clean energy economy forever — and during the transition, a global economic boom much larger than the one the Marshall Plan created.

Kenneth Chang (3):

You did read my story, right? If you’re making gasoline out of CO2, it’s renewable, endless and carbon neutral. Power it by solar instead of nuclear, and it has all of the advantages of what you’re advocating for hydrogen minus the need to build a whole new fuel infrastructure. […] How the heck would you get electricity from the Sahara to the rest of the world? […] There are about 250 million passenger vehicles in the U.S. […] Say $20,000 each for a new car/conversion. That’s $5 trillion right there.

Kenneth Chang (4):

The Los Alamos scientists are not using the Oláh method. They’re using their own method, which takes CO2 from the air. […] The question is scale and economics. […]

“No material can stand up to millions of degrees, these are not technological questions but facts.” — “That’s why you use magnetic fields.”

Béla Lipták (4):

You must be kidding, Kenneth! Do you have any idea how many tornados it would take to concentrate the 380 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere for this to work? Talk to Oláh, he has the numbers. Research into controlled fusion […] has been conducted for over 50 years. […] Ed Teller (who wrote the preface to 3 of my books) said: “Fusion is OK for the hydrogen bomb, but otherwise stay away from it!”

Béla Lipták (5):

Dr. Oláh’s methanol process, using CO2 from smokestacks and hydrogen from sea water, is realistic and I also describe it in my book. On the other hand, pulling the atmosphere through an absorber is not. I did run the numbers: to pull enough atmospheric air containing 380 ppm of CO2 through absorption units — even assuming 100% efficiency and a 1-minute absorption time, both ridiculous assumptions — to match the global anthropogenic emission (nearly 30 bt/y) would require moving 9 trillion ft³/minute, plus the same amount of hydrogen as the solar-hydrogen process requires. If you do not believe my numbers, ask my good colleague and fellow Hungarian, George Oláh.

In other words, my initial letter to the editor is correct and stands unaltered, and particularly the last sentence is very important for our presidential candidates and everybody else to understand: the time for the debate is over, it is time for action. What we need is to build the world’s first full size solar-hydrogen demonstration plant and thereby prove both its feasibility and cost.

Source: Magyar Lobbi, February 23, 2008. See also the Hungarian-language summary on “Szoláris Hidrogén Kísérleti Üzem: Lipták Béla Találmánya.”