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The article claims they are already converting CO2 to fuel on the ISS. This process has been TESTED but we aren't using it right now. Article claims: > Known as the “Sabatier reaction” from the late French chemist Paul Sabatier, it’s a process the International Space Station uses to scrub the carbon dioxide from air the astronauts breathe and generate rocket fuel to keep the station in high orbit. Reality: We just sh…
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The ISS uses rechargeable zeolite beds for CO2 scrubbing, they don't need a new one frequently, and the fact that we shipped a new one is coincidence. Zeolite is a mineral, you get a bunch of small pellets of it in a bed, and run air over it while cooling it. The CO2 (and H2O) stick to it while everything else goes over it. Once you're at capacity you vent it to space and heat it, the CO2 (and H2O) leave the bed (int…
If both operations are exothermic, why the heat exchanger? I would assume one process would need to be endothermic.
"Once you're at capacity you vent it to space and heat it, [...]"
It's been seemingly impossible to motivate the world to switch to alternatives to fuel. We're between a rock and a hard place with society and the environment. It seems like there isn't even a conspiracy, it's just a combination of poor choices, greed, and new technology. Solar is great, but often it's more expensive than just consuming grid power or has unpredictable payoffs. Wind has a lot of upfront costs. Massive…
If it was really an issue, wouldn't free market forces have paved the way to widespread fuel alternative consumption a long time ago? Sure you can force everyone to stop using gasoline and buy an electric car but there are costs to that. I think most people believe there are more dire issues that need fixing and funding.
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> if we consume the fuel byproduct, presumably we just end up with co2 in the atmosphere? The process would still be great news if true, as it could be a carbon-neutral source of hydrocarbon fuel for applications that are hard to electrify, like aviation.
I just imagine the scramble to get carbon neutral allowing huge carbon-processing factories and then we enter some kind of carbon deficit, back in the same situation we are in—a teetering balance between overconsumption and moderation.
I like how in the media publications for carbon capturing they always forget to mention that these things need a ton of energy to run.
If people were willing to work through the issues with nuclear power, running a bunch of nuclear plants to power the scrubbers would be semi-reasonable.
The carbon capture startup founder of Carbon Engineering talks about how he got this wrong, and how they switched their plans from using nuclear to solar. Here's a talk from two years ago on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYopOt9siLg
Note that many disagree with his optimism on the carbon capture side of things, but the solar is generally accepted by technologists.
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They do mention it, just not directly: > Right now we have excess green energy that we just throw away. We can store this excess renewable energy in chemicals. The idea is that it can be used to store excess energy from green sources
unless we price carbon high enough this excess energy is just going to get burnt into bitcoin
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I like how in the media publications for carbon capturing they always forget to mention that these things need a ton of energy to run.
[0] https://medium.com/climate-conscious/nuclear-powered-carbon-...
This isn't the only team trying this. See https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/making-methane-m... for another team working on the same thing for the same purpose. It is worthy of note that the process that is described is exactly the one that Elon Musk was already planning to use on Mars. This is exactly why finding water on Mars is critical to his plans, and is also why Starship is designed to run on methane…
> It is also worth pointing out that producing methane here on Earth for use around Earth is not particularly helpful. Methane is hard to store and is a better greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Couldn't we run the methane through one of those electric generators used in farming for cows' feces ? I honestly don't know how efficient these processes are, not an expert by any means.
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