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I don't want to poo-poo this achievement, but is another burnable fuel really what we want at this point?
by retox 10y ago
I don't want to poo-poo this achievement, but is another burnable fuel really what we want at this point?
- maxerickson 10y agoIf it captures CO2 and can make something like methane or butanol, hell yes. Hydrocarbons have great energy density and simple ones burn clean. If you take the carbon out of the atmosphere, you are net 0 when you burn it back in.
- deegles 10y agoIt could be pumped underground to capture the CO2 permanently.
- eloff 10y agoI'm going to say yes, very much so. Remember the carbon here is coming from the atmosphere, so it's carbon neutral and won't contribute to climate change. If the process can be scaled up to produce a gallon of gasoline for less than the costs of extracting crude from the ground and refining it - then it will quickly kill off new investment into the fossil fuel extraction industry. As opposed to alternate energy technologies, like electric cars which will take a long time to replace internal combustion engine cars. It would use all of the existing infrastructure, so all it has to be is cheaper for market forces to work their magic. That's a very big IF, however, so don't get your hopes up.
- busterarm 10y agoBut it's CO2 in, CO2 out... It's more like using sunlight to recycle CO2...
- ebiester 10y agoIf we had ways to take more CO2 out of the atmosphere, and this was close to carbon neutral, there's no reason to use something like this.
- usefulcat 10y agoYes, because burnable fuels are usually far more energy dense than batteries, and also as others have pointed out because this process is carbon neutral. Maybe someday we'll have significantly better batteries, but until then..
- CamperBob2 10y agoYou're "burning fuel" in your own body as you sit there in your chair typing. So, yes.