161–170 of 291 posts
Converting carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons consumes energy. If the product is simply burned for fuel, I can see no benefit to this effort at all. Energy will have been consumed and carbon will be re-released. What am I missing here? All I can see is a battery in the form of gasoline. And its efficiency remains to be seen - assuming the process actually works and can scale.
that entire article can be reduced to "nanotubes" since its a YC company though maybe we could get the underlying story?
I'm also working on a HN launch summary that will fill in more details.
This and the combination of planting more trees seems much more feasible, assuming you use fertilizer that doesn't harm the environment even more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I strongly suspect that manufacturing hydrocarbon fuel out of air, water, and electricity If you already have electricity, that is all the energy you need. There is no need to use it to produce a toxic, polluting fuel that is used in highly inefficient internal combustion engines. Simply use electric motors, which are way more efficient.
> If you already have electricity, that is all the energy you need If you can store and transport it better than gasoline can be stored and transported, which ... so far you can’t.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I strongly suspect that manufacturing hydrocarbon fuel out of air, water, and electricity If you already have electricity, that is all the energy you need. There is no need to use it to produce a toxic, polluting fuel that is used in highly inefficient internal combustion engines. Simply use electric motors, which are way more efficient.
How would someone in China charge their electric car with clean electricity generated in the United States?
Nobody suggested what you are asking about.
But it seems you are suggesting that rather than generating electricity locally by sustainable means, it would be a better idea to create synthetic gasoline in the US, then ship that to China for them to burn?
This is really, fundamentally important technology. Emissions reduction will not work: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nations-are-not-r... > The authors of the report stated in a press release that the kind of drastic, large-scale action the planet desperately needs has yet to be seen, even though global emissions have reached record levels at 53.5 billion metric tons in 2017, with no signs of peaking. >…
The benefit with capture at this level is that the partial pressure of CO2 is orders of magnitude larger, so you pay a lot less (both CAPEX and OPEX) for the same amount of capture.
When we really need negative emissions, this same cycle can be achieved by starting with bio-gas (known as BECCS).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I strongly suspect that manufacturing hydrocarbon fuel out of air, water, and electricity If you already have electricity, that is all the energy you need. There is no need to use it to produce a toxic, polluting fuel that is used in highly inefficient internal combustion engines. Simply use electric motors, which are way more efficient.
Sea and air transport, as well as remote-location generation, and several industrial processes, rely on or benefit greatly from fuel or hydrocarbon-based inputs.
This is really, fundamentally important technology. Emissions reduction will not work: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nations-are-not-r... > The authors of the report stated in a press release that the kind of drastic, large-scale action the planet desperately needs has yet to be seen, even though global emissions have reached record levels at 53.5 billion metric tons in 2017, with no signs of peaking. >…
On the contrary, decarbonizing fuels before you ship them to market is a way more serious solution. E.g. we already have big plants in the petrochemical industry that go natural gas -> hydrogen and CO2 -> separate out CO2 -> geological CO2 storage. The benefit with capture at this level is that the partial pressure of CO2 is orders of magnitude larger, so you pay a lot less (both CAPEX and OPEX) for the same amount o…
This is really, fundamentally important technology. Emissions reduction will not work: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nations-are-not-r... > The authors of the report stated in a press release that the kind of drastic, large-scale action the planet desperately needs has yet to be seen, even though global emissions have reached record levels at 53.5 billion metric tons in 2017, with no signs of peaking. >…
On the contrary, decarbonizing fuels before you ship them to market is a way more serious solution. E.g. we already have big plants in the petrochemical industry that go natural gas -> hydrogen and CO2 -> separate out CO2 -> geological CO2 storage. The benefit with capture at this level is that the partial pressure of CO2 is orders of magnitude larger, so you pay a lot less (both CAPEX and OPEX) for the same amount o…
Everything I've seen about H2 tells me that electric cars are just better. Luckily for your theory, it's still possible to do what you want with electric cars - just carbon capture at electric power plants.
So, you spend a load of energy to reform atmospheric CO2 back into hydrocarbon fuel - and then just burn it again, turning it back into CO2 and putting it back into the atmosphere? The end state of the atmosphere is, at best, the same as the starting state, but you've expended a load more energy for nothing. If the energy to run this process isn't zero-carbon, then this is going to be a big net emitter when done at s…
You don't have to burn it. In theory governments or environmental groups could simple buy and store it.