6 ms·

This stuff is not competitive with electrochemical methods. A big problem with these methods, besides abysmal efficiency is that the light that drives the phot

This stuff is not competitive with electrochemical methods. A big problem with these methods, besides abysmal efficiency is that the light that drives the photochemical processes has some probability of generating side reactions that destroy the artificial enzyme. Nature overcomes this with unbelievably complex protein repair structures that literally swap out defective proteins for new ones. We have zero chance of replicating this type of thing anytime soon. Bio oil from algae is much closer to practical utility than this tech. And electrochemical CO2 reduction will be an even more scalable and practical solution in the near term in my opinion.

hammock 4y ago
>This stuff is not competitive with electrochemical methods. Which is why we need tax credits for this
- alwayslikethis 4y ago
  What? If we have money to spend on subsidizing stuff, we should subsidize the most efficient methods, which as parent implies, are the electrochemical methods.
  - hammock 4y ago
    The most efficient way to create methane is actually to drill a well, isnt it? I’m being downvoted for suggesting we incentivize something that will help us get off fossil fuels
    - adrianN 4y ago
      I think you're being downvoted because you suggest allocating a limited resource to a method that has better alternatives.
      - hammock 4y ago
        So the tax credits should go to well drilling? And how is a tax credit a limited resource, when the US ran a deficit of over $1 trillion last year?
        adrianN 4y ago
        No, the tax credits should go to more efficient measures for atmospheric carbon capture. Tax credits are a limited resource because money's only use is to buy limited resources. If you increase the money supply to infinity, money loses its meaning.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      No you’re being downvoted because you’re suggesting the worse methane synthesis method should get subsidized when a better alternative exists.
- robocat 4y ago
  Tax credits is often another way of saying environmental pollution. They are appropriate in the short term IF they cause sufficient innovation or economies of scale to kick in. Often they cause more waste, because tax credits often benefit less efficient and more polluting solutions. Without a very deep and very careful analysis, your best proxy for measuring environmental harm is simply the amount spent. For example: corn subsidies for ethanol production are significantly harmful for carbon dioxide pollution (via indirect effects like fertilizer production).
Choco31415 4y ago
> Nature overcomes this with unbelievably complex protein repair structures that literally swap out defective proteins for new ones. Interesting. Mind if I get a link to read up more on the subject? c:
- saulpw 4y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Sixth-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815345240 https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Sixth-Bruce-Alberts...
- eats_indigo 4y ago
  Nick Lane covers this a little in the third chapter of his book Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. It might not be talking about the specific process OP was talking about but rather the Z Scheme of Photosynthesis
- jcims 4y ago
  Not directly related to photosynthesis, just the complexity of biology in general. All of these original animations were done by Drew Berry, Veritasium just packaged a few of them in an easy to digest format https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tYrnv_o6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tYrnv_o6A
- okoslaatoo 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding
- enslavedrobot 4y ago
  It's a very complex topic (especially if you aren't a chemist). I can't find an accessible video on the topic, but you want to look up photosystem II repair. You need to search up D1 replacement in photosystem II. To get a flavour of the nanomachine aspect of it all, check out this video on electron transport across membranes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmTKxI4Wn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmTKxI4Wn4). Electron transport in proteins is crazy complex and actually amounts to molecular circuits where energy is guided to different spots inside proteins complexes in a unidirectional fashion. This guy is the grand daddy of the field (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7m9-PEiB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7m9-PEiB8).
tooltower 4y ago
When you say "electrochemical CO2 reduction", can you expand a bit more into what that method is?
- namibj 4y ago
  Either a methane or carbon monoxide fuel cell run in reverse, or using hydrogen to water gas shift and then further reverse steam reforming into methane.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  When you add an initial water electrolysis to the sabatier process you can have H2O + CO2 > O2 + CH4 That is water and carbon dioxide in, oxygen and methane out. Good for life support in space. If you had infinite free energy you can easily synthesize methane out of air and water. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
chii 4y ago
> Nature overcomes this with unbelievably complex protein repair structures that literally swap out defective proteins for new ones. it's almost as if nature evolved nano-machines that are far more complex than any we humans can envision today, even with our technology!
- nvahalik 4y ago
  Or it's almost as if they were intelligently... designed...
  - tinco 4y ago
    By a watchmaker with terrible eyesight...
    - tomxor 4y ago
      Over billions of years... with trillions of failed watch "designs"...
      - _0w8t 4y ago
        Was it a reference to “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” by David Hume? That book debunked the arguments by design 50 years before the watchmaker parabola was written: “If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic who imitated others, and copied an art which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving?“
      - wongarsu 4y ago
        Even God agrees that iterative design works better than the waterfall process
    - _0w8t 4y ago
      It should be by a sculptor with a terrible eyesight! The sculptor analogy predates the watchmaker one by like 2200 years and for some reasons is much less known these days than watchmaker one. From THE MEMORABILIA by By Xenophon, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1177/1177-h/1177-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1177/1177-h/1177-h.htm “Socrates. But now if you had two sorts of things, the one of which presents no clue as to what it is for, and the other is obviously for some useful purpose—which would you judge to be the result of chance, which of design? Ar. Clearly that which is produced for some useful end is the work of design. Soc. Does it not strike you then that he who made man from the beginning (5) did for some useful end furnish him with his several senses—giving him eyes to behold the visible word, and ears to catch the intonations of sound? Or again, what good would there be in odours if nostrils had not been bestowed upon us? what perception of sweet things and pungent, and of all the pleasures of the palate, had not a tongue been fashioned in us as an interpreter of the same? And besides all this, do you not think this looks like a matter of foresight, this closing of the delicate orbs of sight with eyelids as with folding doors, which, when there is need to use them for any purpose, can be thrown wide open and firmly closed again in sleep? and, that even the winds of heaven may not visit them too roughly, this planting of the eyelashes as a protecting screen? (6) this coping of the region above the eyes with cornice-work of eyebrow so that no drop of sweat fall from the head and injure them? again this readiness of the ear to catch all sounds and yet not to be surcharged? this capacity of the front teeth of all animals to cut and of the "grinders" to receive the food and reduce it to pulp? the position of the mouth again, close to the eyes and nostrils as a portal of ingress for all the creature's supplies? and lastly, seeing that matter passing out (7) of the body is unpleasant, this hindward direction of the passages, and their removal to a distance from the avenues of sense? I ask you, when you see all these things constructed with such show of foresight can you doubt whether they are products of chance or intelligence?” Then in «Against Physicists” by Sextus Empiricus this was cited as: “Tell me, Aristodemus, are there some people you have admired for their wisdom? Yes, there are, he said. Who are they, then? Well, I have admired Homer for his poetry, Polyclitus for his sculpture, and Zeuxis of course for his painting. [93] And is it not because of the exceptional craftsmanship of their works that you approve of them? Yes, it is, he said. If Polyclitus’ statue, then, also took on life, would you not approve of the artist much more? Definitely. Well, given that when you saw a statue you said that it had been crafted by some skilled person, when you see a human being whose soul’s activity and whose body’s design are good, do you not think that he was crafted by some exceptional mind?”
petesergeant 4y ago
> besides abysmal efficiency How much does abysmal efficiency matter when there are places in the world with virtually unlimited sunlight? Serious question.
- smolder 4y ago
  That depends on how abysmal. It may be more effective to just build solar and wind farms to replace the power generated from existing natural gas, if the goal is to have more natural gas and less atmospheric CO2.
- sudhirj 4y ago
  Good point. I've had discussions with friends about things like the Einstein-Slizard refrigeration and efficiency keeps coming up, and it's always a struggle to point out that we're trying to do things in an environment where there's tons of tropical and equatorial sunlight, and little or no access to electricity. Efficiency is not the primary factor when the energy source is free and unlimited.
  - regularfry 4y ago
    Free yes, but not unlimited. It's not very dense, so you get area-limited depressingly quickly. That might not be a problem, depending on how much power you need.
- djmips 4y ago
  The figure that stands out for me is according to this one fossil fuel animation on YouTube they calculate we are using 100 times the amount of carbon that exists in all living creatures on the face of the earth every year. That's food for thought... Even if we used all the forests and all the sea life we still wouldn't have enough energy. So we really need to be eat more efficient than natural systems. https://youtu.be/SD9yVca6hHI https://youtu.be/SD9yVca6hHI
  - MagnumOpus 4y ago
    > they calculate we are using 100 times the amount of carbon that exists in all living creatures on the face of the earth every year This doesn't seem right. Estimates put total biomass at 500-600 billion tons of carbon, and annual biomass production at 100 billion tons of carbon. Meanwhile global carbon emissions from fossil fuels/industry are 35-40 billion tons per year.
elif 4y ago
"We have zero chance of replicating this type of thing anytime soon." gardeners replicate this type of thing daily. my hunch is that the next big breakthrough will be when they can implement this machinery in a seed.

hammock 4y ago

>This stuff is not competitive with electrochemical methods. Which is why we need tax credits for this

alwayslikethis 4y ago
What? If we have money to spend on subsidizing stuff, we should subsidize the most efficient methods, which as parent implies, are the electrochemical methods.
- hammock 4y ago
  The most efficient way to create methane is actually to drill a well, isnt it? I’m being downvoted for suggesting we incentivize something that will help us get off fossil fuels
  - adrianN 4y ago
    I think you're being downvoted because you suggest allocating a limited resource to a method that has better alternatives.
    - hammock 4y ago
      So the tax credits should go to well drilling? And how is a tax credit a limited resource, when the US ran a deficit of over $1 trillion last year?
      - adrianN 4y ago
        No, the tax credits should go to more efficient measures for atmospheric carbon capture. Tax credits are a limited resource because money's only use is to buy limited resources. If you increase the money supply to infinity, money loses its meaning.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    No you’re being downvoted because you’re suggesting the worse methane synthesis method should get subsidized when a better alternative exists.
robocat 4y ago
Tax credits is often another way of saying environmental pollution. They are appropriate in the short term IF they cause sufficient innovation or economies of scale to kick in. Often they cause more waste, because tax credits often benefit less efficient and more polluting solutions. Without a very deep and very careful analysis, your best proxy for measuring environmental harm is simply the amount spent. For example: corn subsidies for ethanol production are significantly harmful for carbon dioxide pollution (via indirect effects like fertilizer production).

Choco31415 4y ago

> Nature overcomes this with unbelievably complex protein repair structures that literally swap out defective proteins for new ones. Interesting. Mind if I get a link to read up more on the subject? c:

saulpw 4y ago
https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Sixth-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815345240 https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Sixth-Bruce-Alberts...
eats_indigo 4y ago
Nick Lane covers this a little in the third chapter of his book Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. It might not be talking about the specific process OP was talking about but rather the Z Scheme of Photosynthesis
jcims 4y ago
Not directly related to photosynthesis, just the complexity of biology in general. All of these original animations were done by Drew Berry, Veritasium just packaged a few of them in an easy to digest format https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tYrnv_o6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tYrnv_o6A
okoslaatoo 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding
enslavedrobot 4y ago
It's a very complex topic (especially if you aren't a chemist). I can't find an accessible video on the topic, but you want to look up photosystem II repair. You need to search up D1 replacement in photosystem II. To get a flavour of the nanomachine aspect of it all, check out this video on electron transport across membranes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmTKxI4Wn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmTKxI4Wn4). Electron transport in proteins is crazy complex and actually amounts to molecular circuits where energy is guided to different spots inside proteins complexes in a unidirectional fashion. This guy is the grand daddy of the field (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7m9-PEiB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7m9-PEiB8).

tooltower 4y ago

When you say "electrochemical CO2 reduction", can you expand a bit more into what that method is?

namibj 4y ago
Either a methane or carbon monoxide fuel cell run in reverse, or using hydrogen to water gas shift and then further reverse steam reforming into methane.
colechristensen 4y ago
When you add an initial water electrolysis to the sabatier process you can have H2O + CO2 > O2 + CH4 That is water and carbon dioxide in, oxygen and methane out. Good for life support in space. If you had infinite free energy you can easily synthesize methane out of air and water. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

chii 4y ago

> Nature overcomes this with unbelievably complex protein repair structures that literally swap out defective proteins for new ones. it's almost as if nature evolved nano-machines that are far more complex than any we humans can envision today, even with our technology!

nvahalik 4y ago
Or it's almost as if they were intelligently... designed...
- tinco 4y ago
  By a watchmaker with terrible eyesight...
  - tomxor 4y ago
    Over billions of years... with trillions of failed watch "designs"...
    - _0w8t 4y ago
      Was it a reference to “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” by David Hume? That book debunked the arguments by design 50 years before the watchmaker parabola was written: “If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic who imitated others, and copied an art which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving?“
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      Even God agrees that iterative design works better than the waterfall process
  - _0w8t 4y ago
    It should be by a sculptor with a terrible eyesight! The sculptor analogy predates the watchmaker one by like 2200 years and for some reasons is much less known these days than watchmaker one. From THE MEMORABILIA by By Xenophon, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1177/1177-h/1177-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1177/1177-h/1177-h.htm “Socrates. But now if you had two sorts of things, the one of which presents no clue as to what it is for, and the other is obviously for some useful purpose—which would you judge to be the result of chance, which of design? Ar. Clearly that which is produced for some useful end is the work of design. Soc. Does it not strike you then that he who made man from the beginning (5) did for some useful end furnish him with his several senses—giving him eyes to behold the visible word, and ears to catch the intonations of sound? Or again, what good would there be in odours if nostrils had not been bestowed upon us? what perception of sweet things and pungent, and of all the pleasures of the palate, had not a tongue been fashioned in us as an interpreter of the same? And besides all this, do you not think this looks like a matter of foresight, this closing of the delicate orbs of sight with eyelids as with folding doors, which, when there is need to use them for any purpose, can be thrown wide open and firmly closed again in sleep? and, that even the winds of heaven may not visit them too roughly, this planting of the eyelashes as a protecting screen? (6) this coping of the region above the eyes with cornice-work of eyebrow so that no drop of sweat fall from the head and injure them? again this readiness of the ear to catch all sounds and yet not to be surcharged? this capacity of the front teeth of all animals to cut and of the "grinders" to receive the food and reduce it to pulp? the position of the mouth again, close to the eyes and nostrils as a portal of ingress for all the creature's supplies? and lastly, seeing that matter passing out (7) of the body is unpleasant, this hindward direction of the passages, and their removal to a distance from the avenues of sense? I ask you, when you see all these things constructed with such show of foresight can you doubt whether they are products of chance or intelligence?” Then in «Against Physicists” by Sextus Empiricus this was cited as: “Tell me, Aristodemus, are there some people you have admired for their wisdom? Yes, there are, he said. Who are they, then? Well, I have admired Homer for his poetry, Polyclitus for his sculpture, and Zeuxis of course for his painting. [93] And is it not because of the exceptional craftsmanship of their works that you approve of them? Yes, it is, he said. If Polyclitus’ statue, then, also took on life, would you not approve of the artist much more? Definitely. Well, given that when you saw a statue you said that it had been crafted by some skilled person, when you see a human being whose soul’s activity and whose body’s design are good, do you not think that he was crafted by some exceptional mind?”

petesergeant 4y ago

> besides abysmal efficiency How much does abysmal efficiency matter when there are places in the world with virtually unlimited sunlight? Serious question.

smolder 4y ago
That depends on how abysmal. It may be more effective to just build solar and wind farms to replace the power generated from existing natural gas, if the goal is to have more natural gas and less atmospheric CO2.
sudhirj 4y ago
Good point. I've had discussions with friends about things like the Einstein-Slizard refrigeration and efficiency keeps coming up, and it's always a struggle to point out that we're trying to do things in an environment where there's tons of tropical and equatorial sunlight, and little or no access to electricity. Efficiency is not the primary factor when the energy source is free and unlimited.
- regularfry 4y ago
  Free yes, but not unlimited. It's not very dense, so you get area-limited depressingly quickly. That might not be a problem, depending on how much power you need.
djmips 4y ago
The figure that stands out for me is according to this one fossil fuel animation on YouTube they calculate we are using 100 times the amount of carbon that exists in all living creatures on the face of the earth every year. That's food for thought... Even if we used all the forests and all the sea life we still wouldn't have enough energy. So we really need to be eat more efficient than natural systems. https://youtu.be/SD9yVca6hHI https://youtu.be/SD9yVca6hHI
- MagnumOpus 4y ago
  > they calculate we are using 100 times the amount of carbon that exists in all living creatures on the face of the earth every year This doesn't seem right. Estimates put total biomass at 500-600 billion tons of carbon, and annual biomass production at 100 billion tons of carbon. Meanwhile global carbon emissions from fossil fuels/industry are 35-40 billion tons per year.

elif 4y ago

"We have zero chance of replicating this type of thing anytime soon." gardeners replicate this type of thing daily. my hunch is that the next big breakthrough will be when they can implement this machinery in a seed.