Decentralized model in detail - Materials and Manufacturing
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Materials and Manufacturing
Electricity is generated in decentralized manner as described above. CO2 is captured from air Carbon dioxide is then reacted with hydrogen gained from electrolysis of water to produce a suite of carbo hydrates in a process called Fischer-Tropsch after its inventors. The resulting molecules are exactly the same as what come out of oil refineries when fossil oil is cracked.
A few chemicals are the base feedstock of modern chemical industries. Namely;
Light olefins – ethylene (C2H4) and propylene (C3H6)
Aromatics – benzene (C6H6, in a ring formation), toluene (benzene derivate where one hydrogen is replaced with CH3 group -called methyl group), xylene (benzene derivate with two methyl groups) and a mixture of the above three chemicals called BTX that is a product of refining naphtha in an oil refinery
C4 hydrocarbons – butanes (C4H10), butenes (C4H8 also called butylene) and butadienes (C2H4)
Kerosene derived (C9-C17) paraffins
Syngas – mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H)
These feedstocks can be used to replicate what chemical industries do today. And almost everything around us is oil-based (some at bottom using nitrogen instead as starting point):
Chemical Industry Goods.
Goods made via Fischer-Tropsch or Haber-Bosch processes locally
Plastics. plastics for textiles, clothes, ropes, carpets, building materials, housewares, food packaging, toys, sport equipment, shoes, eyeglasses, membranes for water cleaning, health accessories like syringes, gloves etc.
Recycling plastics. Plastics can be recycled either as the full product sold to new customer, mechanical or chemical recycling or as last alternative burned
Adhesives. aka glues
Surfactants. aka detergents.
Medicines and other health goods
Fertilizers. Nitrogen based fertilisers areare manufactured from nitrogen captured from air via another key process – Haber-Bosch.
Nitrogen capture does not cover all fertiliser types nor all explosives, but provide products in decentralised manner to these needs.
The scaling down of chemical industries is done with flow chemistry where modular units are connected together to form the needed processing flow for synthetizing different compounds. When enough is produced the components can be reassembled to do something else.
Artificial intelligence is being developed to plan the synthetics routes for producing compounds, aim being any manufacturing of any compound. When this is combined with an automated flow chemistry unit where robots assemble the production process to follow the “recipe”, we end up with an automated production facility that can produce any compound that is possible with the available materials and flow chemistry units. This even when there are no pre-made instructions.
With ample supply of local materials, pretty much anything can be made locally once one has the needed equipment
FabLabs is concept of digital fabrication laboratories set up so that people and entrepreneur and test their ideas and ultimately turn them into new products. Fablabs are equipped with the range of of advanced digital manufacturing tools such as computer-assisted design software, 3D printers for several materials like plastic or wood, CNC machines for wood, metal and plastic, open-source electronic kits like Arduino etc. The FabLabs enable anyone to design and create objects themselves or to use ready-made designs from the Internet.
One missing raw material is naturally metals for this to happen. See the article on the concept of local digital fabrication and mini-mills for more.
Metals
Metals can be recycled in principle infinitely in mini-mills.
These are small mills that use scrap metal as input and melt the metals using electric arc furnaces (EAFs). They are typically built near the source of scrap metals, cities or other densely populated areas. Traditionally steel and other metals are made from ore in blast furnaces that are quite energy intensive. With mini-mills it’s possible to switch the type of steel or alloy produced quite fast making them much more agile.
Alternate Pathways
There are alternatives to this path of producing chemical feedstocks but we only briefly discussed them. For example, in biorefineries the hard parts of plants, that today go unused to a great deal, are fermented and alcohols like ethanol is produced. Ethanol can directly be used as a fuel or used as a feedstock to build chemical processes similar to ones now based on crude or synthetic oil.
Third option is to use microbes to produce chemicals or food proteins. For example, use algae to produce hydrogen or hydrocarbons. Or engineered microbes to produce directly egg white, milk proteins etc. without animals. And produce biosimilars, complex molecules that are very similar to the hormones in our bodies and have same effect, but simpler to make. These for people whose body cannot produce essential hormones for one or the other reason.
The path to produce engineered microbes contains quite a lot of developments and we discussed those in the post about decentralised medicine manufacturing.
These are:
PCR for fast duplication of genetic material
DNA sequencing for reading the DNA material
Understanding the function of specific genes and creation of libraries with this information
CRISPR for editing genes and adding new functionalities to cells (like creation of biosimilar medicines by modified microbes)
Locally synthetizing DNA. This is based on transmitting the right genetic information digitally anywhere so that the right medicine can be produced locally when needed.
The three methods of decentralising are naturally not mutually exclusive in any way.
Local production
Everything seems to be doable in decentralised manner: electricity, energy storage, heat, fuels, buildings, chemicals, buildings, insulation, piping, furniture, carpets, rugs, clothes, housewares, cups, cutlery, food containers medical equipment (sutures, syringes, gloves), toys, sports equipment, eyeglasses, medicines, paints, glues, detergents, rubbers, food, fertilizers, pesticides, explosives, electronics, bikes, boats, even motor vehicles.
Question is about how easy it is, what it costs compared to current fragile global model and do ready-made blueprints exists and are they readily available