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Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

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Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#81

Post by the_duke »

wongarsu wrote: post #71
Animats wrote: post #35

"Nanotechnology" again. It's just surface chemistry, people. It's nice that they can do this in the lab, but as usual, the PR is excessive. "The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete." At least get to pilot plant stage before issuing statements like that. Especially since UC Berkeley announced a similar breakthrough last year.[1] Wikipedia points…

>"The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete." At least get to pilot plant stage before issuing statements like that. They don't really say that they are cost comparable to gasoline, they just make the obvious statement that if something were as cheap as gasoline that would be a big deal. I guess hyping these advances is supposed to make it easier…

To be fair, I never read anything about fusion being 'just around the corner'.

The most optimistic estimates I know of talk about commercial viability in a 30-50 year timeframe.

Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#82

Post by the_duke »

vonnik wrote: post #77

Isn't it counterproductive to turn it into fuel to be burned? It seems like that would leave us at best at no net new carbon dioxide, when we really should be sucking CO2 out and sequestering it away. How about we turn it into bricks or something...

Well, there is nothing out there that can equal the energy density of fossil fuels, which would be essential for powering trucks, buses, airplanes, ships, tanks ....

And if we ever get batteries to be competitive, it's a long, long way of.

Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#83

Post by grapehut »

Gargoyle wrote: post #67
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have regularly found that random HN commenters often turn out to have years of professional experience in the industries they are commenting on. Its one of the fun parts of reading HN.

But it'd be great to have an "ignore user" function for those few who just google their skepticism.

You might want to get the "Hacker News Enhancement Suite" extension. It's incredibly useful for cases like this, for instance I have tagged Animats (the creator of this sub thread) as "faux expert" after reading some of his crypto posts (a topic I know something about) that were written as if he was an expert, but completely and dangerously wrong.

Not knowing anything about chemistry, I would've been inclined to believe his post if it wasn't for the Hacker News extension suite, and I can read from someone who actually knows the field

Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#84

Post by epistasis »

willvarfar wrote: post #31
loeg wrote: post #22

So it's 20x cheaper than the noble gas version — what's the absolute cost? I assume it's not cheaper than pumping fossil fuels yet, but I'm curious to know how far away it is.

Yeah, this sentence in the middle of the article: > The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete. Doesn't actually say that this is at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline :) Sly words.

I don't get the "sly" part; talking about implications of the work is important, as well as future goals, and the sentence is extremely clear. You'd have to be an idiot to think that they're claiming to be that cost effective, and generally that type of person would not have made it through the intro paragraphs.

Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#85

Post by nercht12 »

gakada wrote: post #37
runeks wrote: post #9

This is wonderful! We're surrounded by life forms that turn water, CO2 and sunlight into energy. I figure there must be some way to harness this process. I wonder how much power a large tree takes in from its leaves. If we could interface with its root system, perhaps we could extract newly created starch, and either store it or burn it off. Image a huge concrete power plant with large trees growing out of it.

Isn't what you're describing called biodiesel? Palm oil, rapeseed oil, etc. The problem is that however much humans need electrical energy, they need food a hell of a lot more. Electrical energy has to come from the land we're not feeding ourselves from, i.e. deserts, grasslands, rooftops.

I believe we have plenty of food. We could put panels in our backyards, but solar panels are rather expensive, and it's usually more convenient paying a power company and forgetting about the matter than setting up our own mini power plants.

Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#86

Post by jsmthrowaway »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #64
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing rigorous about the ongoing fantasy that random HN commenters know things that no one else does.

I have regularly found that random HN commenters often turn out to have years of professional experience in the industries they are commenting on. Its one of the fun parts of reading HN.

That observation is circular and incredibly dangerous, though, for self-evident reasons including this thread.

Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#88

Post by jsmthrowaway »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #62
Animats wrote: post #35

"Nanotechnology" again. It's just surface chemistry, people. It's nice that they can do this in the lab, but as usual, the PR is excessive. "The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete." At least get to pilot plant stage before issuing statements like that. Especially since UC Berkeley announced a similar breakthrough last year.[1] Wikipedia points…

The press release at least attempted to answer some of your 'usual questions'.

It directly answered several of them, in actuality.

Re: Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

#89

Post by valgaze »

Animats wrote: post #35

"Nanotechnology" again. It's just surface chemistry, people. It's nice that they can do this in the lab, but as usual, the PR is excessive. "The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete." At least get to pilot plant stage before issuing statements like that. Especially since UC Berkeley announced a similar breakthrough last year.[1] Wikipedia points…

Serious question: Is there a sassy phrase in the hardcore research world for over-hyping discoveries? Like how we can identify "vaporware" as a concept since we have a word for it.

If not there really should be

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