Science journalists misleading the public

I apologize to the masses who check my blog on a regular basis (all three of you) – I’ve been busy and the summer hasn’t had much gripping political stuff for me to comment on..

But today I read something I just shook my head at:

An enzyme found in the roots of soybeans could be the key to cars that run on air.

Vanadium nitrogenase, an enzyme that normally produces ammonia from nitrogen gas, can also convert carbon monoxide (CO), a common industrial byproduct, into propane, the blue-flamed gas found on stoves across America.

While scientists caution the research is still at an early stage, they say that this study could eventually lead to new, environmentally friendly ways to produce fuel — and eventually gasoline — from thin air.

Umm..  No.  I don’t think so.  A few things that make the last statement extremely unlikely, if not completely ridiculous:

• An enzyme is simply a catalyst.  It facilitates a chemical reaction, often reducing the activation energy (i.e. temperature) required to make the reaction happen.
• Catalysts cannot reduce the actual energy balance of the reaction – the reactants have a “Gibbs Free Energy” content, and the products have another “Gibbs Free Energy” content.  This delta is the same regardless of the path taken to get from state 1 to state 2.
• Therefore, this enzyme – vanadium nitrogenase, needs some external energy source to drive it’s reaction.  No indication from the article as to where this comes from…
• Producing hydrocarbons from CO (and H2 or H2O) requires energy input – it’s endothermic.  This is the Fisher-Tropsch reaction.  Historically, this is done with an iron or cobalt catalyst, ala Sasol in South Africa.
• The second law of thermodynamics states that I need to put in more energy than I can take out.  So the energy input required to produce a hydrocarbon from CO and H2O must be greater than the energy one can get back out – during the combustion of the hydrocarbon.
• Now there is one place the math works out – if you start with CO and H2 and make hydrocarbons, then burn the hydrocarbons completely – producing CO2 and H2O, then you could get a net positive energy content out.  The only problem is that you failed to include the energy needed to produce the CO and H2 in the first place.  These do NOT exist  in significant concentrations in air or exhaust gas.
• So the statement “produce gasoline from thin air” is impossible. The feedstocks aren’t there and if you started from what is in air – the energy balance doesn’t work and you consume energy.

So – beware of people claiming to make something from nothing.  If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.