From Neil Biggar
Yellow Rock, New South Wales, Australia
In reading the article by Leonard David about how a future Mars mission might
manufacture fuel for the return journey to Earth (“Escape from Mars”, 28 June, p
24), I found myself wondering about the application of these processes to the
manufacture of fuel on Earth.
The feedstock for the processes consists essentially of water, carbon dioxide
and electricity. Both water and CO2 are plentiful on Earth. If the
electricity were to be generated using solar-voltaic or wind technologies, then
how efficiently could that energy be converted into easily transportable fuel
such as the methanol produced by the Mars fuel technology?
