4 ms·
If you can use the renewable energy directly, that's far better, but often you can't. Synthetic hydrocarbons let you use renewable energy shifted in time, spac
by bryanlarsen 2y ago
If you can use the renewable energy directly, that's far better, but often you can't.
Synthetic hydrocarbons let you use renewable energy shifted in time, space, modality or avoid capital costs.
- applications that can't use batteries, like long distance plane flights
- applications where it's cheaper to spend 6X as much for fuel than it is to buy a new vehicle
- for storage more than a few days
etx
- danbruc 2y agoSure, if you capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to use it as a storage or transportation medium for renewable energy, that is perfectly fine. Trade some efficiency for overcoming some of the limitations of renewable sources like their variability or the difficulty to store electricity. But that is not really carbon removal from the atmosphere, you take some out and later put it back. The article however frames the endeavor as removing carbon from the atmosphere, either the one we are currently burning or even the one we burnt in the past. Carbon removal by definition means we can not burn it later somewhere else, we have to permanently store it somewhere. There is no point in turning the carbon into some high quality product if we then just bury it somewhere, you want something cheap to make and easy to store. As a non-fossile source for chemicals it makes sense but that is just a small fraction of our problem as we just burn most of the stuff.