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Where synthetic liquids (and indeed methane) can be interesting is if you want to ship the energy somewhere. So you can make the methanol somewhere with abundan
by tomatocracy 3y ago
Where synthetic liquids (and indeed methane) can be interesting is if you want to ship the energy somewhere. So you can make the methanol somewhere with abundant cheap electricity and CO2, then ship or pipe it to places which lack that.
It's a lot easier and cheaper to transport methanol or methane (either piped or in the form of LNG) than H2 since it takes a lot leas space and we already have a lot of infrastructure for it.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoIn the long run it is cheaper to transport the energy as electricity.
- tomatocracy 3y agoThat depends on the distances involved - eg if you want to generate cheap solar electricity in the Middle East or South America and export it to Europe or North America (which is something people in the industry have discussed as being potentially economical in the long term) this isn't really practical.