31–40 of 71 posts
I don't get the point of this. We already have a self propagating machine that can turn carbon dioxide into a useful carbon substrate that is stable over long time periods, and is a thoroughly proven carbon sequestration technology. It's called a tree.
> This process has several advantages when compared to other methods of converting CO2 into fuel. The reaction uses common materials like copper and carbon, and it converts the CO2 into ethanol, which is already widely used as a fuel. > Perhaps most importantly, it works at room temperature, which means that it can be started and stopped easily and with little energy cost. This means that this conversion process coul…
The abstract of the article includes : >Herein we report a common element, nanostructured catalyst for the direct electrochemical conversion of CO2 to ethanol with high Faradaic efficiency (63 % at −1.2 V vs RHE) and high selectivity (84 %) that operates in water and at ambient temperature and pressure. I am not exactly sure how to understand the 63% efficiency but I assume that this is the rate of conversion from el…
Something that annoys me with these articles is that such processes are usually praised as carbon capture at the same time as it is energy storage. Well yes, but not both at the same time. And I really doubt its effectiveness as energy storage in the first place - why would you burn fossil fuels (with a loss), then gather energy with renewables to capture back the CO2 (with a loss) and then use the energy of the etha…
I wonder if it would be useful to harvest excess CO2 from the atmosphere. That way, you're using the existing CO2 as a fuel source.
> This process has several advantages when compared to other methods of converting CO2 into fuel. The reaction uses common materials like copper and carbon, and it converts the CO2 into ethanol, which is already widely used as a fuel. > Perhaps most importantly, it works at room temperature, which means that it can be started and stopped easily and with little energy cost. This means that this conversion process coul…
Popular Mechanics isn't a science journal. It's the dead-tree version of clickbait.
I don't get the point of this. We already have a self propagating machine that can turn carbon dioxide into a useful carbon substrate that is stable over long time periods, and is a thoroughly proven carbon sequestration technology. It's called a tree.
I don't get the point of this. We already have a self propagating machine that can turn carbon dioxide into a useful carbon substrate that is stable over long time periods, and is a thoroughly proven carbon sequestration technology. It's called a tree.
The main question is whether there's a carbon sequestration process which can be industrialized so that it's more effective than planting trees.
> This process has several advantages when compared to other methods of converting CO2 into fuel. The reaction uses common materials like copper and carbon, and it converts the CO2 into ethanol, which is already widely used as a fuel. > Perhaps most importantly, it works at room temperature, which means that it can be started and stopped easily and with little energy cost. This means that this conversion process coul…
Popular Mechanics isn't a science journal. It's the dead-tree version of clickbait.
Something that annoys me with these articles is that such processes are usually praised as carbon capture at the same time as it is energy storage. Well yes, but not both at the same time. And I really doubt its effectiveness as energy storage in the first place - why would you burn fossil fuels (with a loss), then gather energy with renewables to capture back the CO2 (with a loss) and then use the energy of the etha…
Batteries might be more expensive than storing energy in liquid fuels. They have a limited number of charge cycles after all, whereas a vat of Ethanol can be refilled forever. There is also a large number of motors available that can burn Ethanol, but a significantly smaller number of electric vehicles.
2.) if cheap energy density is the problem they want to solve, then this process at least needs to be compared to using the land to grow plants in order to turn them into ethanol fuel. So a comparison like "wind farm under average conditions + ethanol farming" vs. "wind farm under average conditions + solar under average conditions + CO2 to ethanol process" --> how many Joules of kinetic energy can you produce per square kilometer of land, given the fuel/electricity is used in the currently most efficient motors/batteries?
I don't get the point of this. We already have a self propagating machine that can turn carbon dioxide into a useful carbon substrate that is stable over long time periods, and is a thoroughly proven carbon sequestration technology. It's called a tree.