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It burns carbon that was in the air to begin with though. An attempt at a closed loop with gasoline is better than a one way road into the atmosphere

loeg 8y ago
The loop isn't closed — you have to add energy to drive the process.
- smt88 8y ago
  True, but the new energy could be renewable/clean. In that case, it's like you're using hydrocarbons as a storage and transport mechanism for renewables. Also lets you have nearly net-zero carbon emissions from the billions of hydrocarbon-burning engines in the world.
  - Johnny555 8y ago
    Efficiency still matters -- Renewable doesn't mean unlimited or cheap -- if it takes 10X more energy to create hydrocarbons than you get back from burning them, maybe it's better to use that energy for more efficient transportation storage systems. Then you can use some of the energy saved for direct carbon sequestration.
- madengr 8y ago
  Yeah, I’d like to know the cycle efficiency.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- adrianmonk 8y ago
  One of the goals is to close the carbon loop (not the energy loop). Quoting from the paper: > An industrial process for large-scale capture of atmospheric CO2 (DAC) serves two roles. First, as a source of CO2 for making carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels, enabling carbon-free energy to be converted into high-energy-density fuels. Solar fuels, for example, may be produced at high-insolation low-cost locations from DAC-CO2 and electrolytic hydrogen using gas-to-liquids technology enabling decarbonization of difficult-to-electrify sectors such as aviation. And second, DAC with CO2 sequestration allows carbon removal. So, to summarize their first role, they would produce hydrogen from water, combine it with CO2 extracted from the atmosphere, and then burn it. Thus no net carbon added to the atmosphere. Essentially, instead of moving carbon from fossil fuels to the atmosphere, you would borrow carbon from the atmosphere, turn it into fuels, burn it, and return it to where you borrowed it from.
- notabee 8y ago
  This technology is one answer to an often-heard criticism (often presented with dubious motivation). The criticism is that storing solar or wind energy for when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing is a problem with renewables. However, if one considers intelligent grid balancing, solar-thermal towers, increasingly better battery technology, and this kind of solar-to-hydrocarbon conversion you have plenty of places to put excess renewable power generation.

loeg 8y ago

The loop isn't closed — you have to add energy to drive the process.

smt88 8y ago
True, but the new energy could be renewable/clean. In that case, it's like you're using hydrocarbons as a storage and transport mechanism for renewables. Also lets you have nearly net-zero carbon emissions from the billions of hydrocarbon-burning engines in the world.
- Johnny555 8y ago
  Efficiency still matters -- Renewable doesn't mean unlimited or cheap -- if it takes 10X more energy to create hydrocarbons than you get back from burning them, maybe it's better to use that energy for more efficient transportation storage systems. Then you can use some of the energy saved for direct carbon sequestration.
madengr 8y ago
Yeah, I’d like to know the cycle efficiency.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
adrianmonk 8y ago
One of the goals is to close the carbon loop (not the energy loop). Quoting from the paper: > An industrial process for large-scale capture of atmospheric CO2 (DAC) serves two roles. First, as a source of CO2 for making carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels, enabling carbon-free energy to be converted into high-energy-density fuels. Solar fuels, for example, may be produced at high-insolation low-cost locations from DAC-CO2 and electrolytic hydrogen using gas-to-liquids technology enabling decarbonization of difficult-to-electrify sectors such as aviation. And second, DAC with CO2 sequestration allows carbon removal. So, to summarize their first role, they would produce hydrogen from water, combine it with CO2 extracted from the atmosphere, and then burn it. Thus no net carbon added to the atmosphere. Essentially, instead of moving carbon from fossil fuels to the atmosphere, you would borrow carbon from the atmosphere, turn it into fuels, burn it, and return it to where you borrowed it from.
notabee 8y ago
This technology is one answer to an often-heard criticism (often presented with dubious motivation). The criticism is that storing solar or wind energy for when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing is a problem with renewables. However, if one considers intelligent grid balancing, solar-thermal towers, increasingly better battery technology, and this kind of solar-to-hydrocarbon conversion you have plenty of places to put excess renewable power generation.