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There is a great way to store, transport, and use hydrogen: Bind it to various length carbon chains. When burned as an energy source the two main byproducts a

• mapontosevenths 8mo ago
  Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which makes the world warmer on average. It also lowers the PH levels of the oceans. If the oceans die, its very likely that many or even most humans will also. As a human I am pretty strongly opposed to dying, but thats just, like, my opinion man.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
    Take The Great Barrier Reef for example. There’s more of it now than in the reefs recorded history. Well, 2022 data: https://www.aims.gov.au/information-centre/news-and-stories/great-barrier-reef-reviving-or-dying-heres-whats-happening-beyond-headlines https://www.aims.gov.au/information-centre/news-and-stories/...
    • Braxton1980 8mo ago
      "The picture is complex. Recovery here, fresh losses there. While the recovery we reported last year was welcome news, there are challenges ahead. The spectre of global annual coral bleaching will soon become a reality." This article also mentions that a recent large recovery was due to el nino conditions "Great Barrier Reef was reeling from successive disturbances, ranging from marine heatwaves and coral bleaching to crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and cyclone damage, with widespread death of many corals especially during the heatwaves of 2016 and 2017. Since then, the Reef has rebounded. Generally cooler La Niña conditions mean hard corals have recovered significant ground, regrowing from very low levels after a decade of cumulative disturbances to record high levels in 2022 across two-thirds of the reef." Not sure if you were trying to imply some long term recovery or that global warming didn't hurt it because the article says heatwaves were part of a many other conditions that caused massive damage
      • nandomrumber 8mo ago
        No one ever attract public support and funding by saying: Don’t Panic. Everything is O.K. —- Edited to add: Rate limited so can’t reply without creating more alt accounts than I’m willing to, so: @Timon3 - that’s actually a really good point, and I follow at least a few folk that could be categorised as such at least some of the time.
        • Timon3 8mo ago
          No, many people say exactly that and make a lot of money doing so while also telling us that all the evidence is fake.
          • mapontosevenths 8mo ago
            Trump asked for a billion. [0] He didn't get the whole billion (as far as we know), but he's keeping up his end of the deal. [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...
        • Braxton1980 8mo ago
          Unless you have other evidence that this particular report is exaggerating without justification you can't solely rely on the fact that their opinions/results would benefit them as evidence they are providing misinformation. It's possible for information to be factual and opinions to be justified from a source while that source also benefits from the information/opinions existing. I can easily provide counter examples from countless situations that occur each year. ---- If you feel that all scientists and researchers have a lower level of trust because of negative actions of some, that's wrong of course because their reputations aren't connected, but you try to confirm it. For example, find out if a cooler than normal El Nino season would help coral feeds (or whatever) What you did was tell us you don't trust the information, not because of something specific, but a concept/rule you believe. Considering you originally misrepresented their findings, perhaps by accident, you should have done more to make your case.
        • 8mo ago
    • mapontosevenths 8mo ago
      Bad news, there has been a fourth great bleaching event going on since January of 23. This time 80+% of all reefs have been impacted and the consensus seems to be that its unlikely there will be any reefs left at all before too long. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/coral-reefs-ice-sheets-amazon-rainforest-tipping-point-global-heating-scientists-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/coral-re...
      • TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
        [flagged]
        • Intermernet 8mo ago
          I think you've been listening to the wrong people. That's a whole lot of dog whistles in that screed.
          • TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
            Right, don’t address the substance of the message, just drive-by-dismiss the concerns of a growing segment of voters. My comment you responded to didn’t happen overnight. You’re welcome to go through my comment history and address my concerns as detailed over the previous thirteen years, many of which are much more level headed and many contain references to thinkers much more intelligent and way more eloquent than anything I’ll ever write.
        • itishappy 8mo ago
          Yes yes, The Sky Is Falling™. :)
          • TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
            Haha! Yeah, embarrassing to say that then go on to write that screed. Time for a top-up!
        • mapontosevenths 8mo ago
  • badc0ffee 8mo ago
    Factually correct, but you also missed the joke.
    • idiotsecant 8mo ago
      It was only kinda a joke. It's a joke in the same way that uncle on Facebook makes jokes. You know the one.
  • bobthepanda 8mo ago
    The major problem with hydrocarbons today is that we are releasing carbon dioxide stored hundreds of millions of years ago. If, theoretically, you could produce hydrocarbons from the carbon dioxide that is currently in our atmosphere, then it could be a substantial reduction in net carbon dioxide being added; and it would be compatible with the fuel infrastructure of today.
    • thrownthatway 8mo ago
      What must have been the composition of the atmosphere all those hundreds of millions of years ago for all that carbon dioxide to have been removed from the atmosphere and sequestered as biological matter, to then be buried and reacted to form vast quantities of hydrocarbons. The bind moggles.
      • mapontosevenths 8mo ago
        Your mind should boggle. It's all pretty amazing. 2.5 billion years ago the earth would have been uninhabitable to most modern life. Single celled life evolved in those conditions and began creating glucose and oxygen from CO2 and water. When those primitive lifeforms died some of them became oil and the CO2 was sequestered. Over time the CO2 levels dropped until about 20 million years ago the CO2 levels fell to about 300ppm. That's when life as we know it really took off. Yes, it took BILLIONS of years to get there. Humans have only existed for about 200k years. During that time our CO2 levels have mostly been below about 280ppm. The are now at 429ppm and are rising exponentially. [0] [0] https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2 https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
        • thrownthatway 8mo ago
          What role, if any, did carbonate mineral formation have in sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?
          • adrian_b 8mo ago
            In the beginning, the oceans were acidic, because they were formed by the condensation of volcanic gases, which consisted of water, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen chloride (i.e. hydrochloric acid) and a few other less abundant acids. In time, the oceans have become less and less acidic, by dissolving from the volcanic silicate rocks the oxides of the alkaline metals and alkali earth metals, i.e. mainly of sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium. This dissolution has affected both the rocks on the bottom of the oceans and the continental rocks, where rain has washed the soluble oxides, transporting them through rivers to the oceans. At some point, so much of the alkaline and alkali earth metals from the volcanic rocks have been dissolved that the oceans have become slightly alkaline instead of acidic, like they are today. At that time, the carbonates of calcium and magnesium have precipitated from sea water, forming sedimentary rocks. Also around that time, many living beings have evolved mechanisms for controlling this precipitation process, in order to build skeletons for themselves. This has resulted in the fact that many sedimentary rocks are not formed by direct precipitation from sea water, but by precipitation from sea water into skeletons, followed by depositing on the bottom the skeletons of dead living beings. Now, with increasing concentration of CO2, there is the danger that the oceans will become so acidic as to reverse this, dissolving again a part of the carbonate rocks, including the skeletons of many living beings that are made of carbonates. There is an equilibrium between the concentration of CO2 in water and in air, depending on temperature and pressure. When the CO2 from water precipitated with calcium or magnesium into rocks, that has drawn more CO2 from air into the water, until a new equilibrium was reached, at a reduced concentration of CO2 in the air. If carbonates would be dissolved by acidic sea water, that would liberate CO2, a part of which would go into the air, further increasing the concentration there. Thus the formation or destruction of carbonate rocks and skeletons adds a positive feedback to the changes of the CO2 concentration in the air, which has the potential to be bad for us. Even worse is the fact that this is only one of multiple positive feedback mechanisms that can be triggered by changes in the CO2 concentration in the air, which make very difficult or impossible any long term predictions.
  • dredmorbius 8mo ago
    It's possible to synthesise hydrocarbon analogues of petroluem-based fuels. The problem to date has been that this isn't cost-competitive with petroleum, though the difference is narrower than you might expect. Most famously, a Google X Project attempted this and succeeded technically, but the economics were unfavourable: Project Foghorn: <https://x.company/projects/foghorn/ https://x.company/projects/foghorn/>. Both Germany and South Africa have performed synfuel production (from coal) at industrial scale since the 1930s / 1950s, respectively. Using non-fossil carbon is largely the same chemistry; the process does in fact scale. Fischer-Tropsch and Sabatier process can both operate with scavenged CO2. There's been some work since the 1990s utilising seawater as a CO2 source, with CO2 capture being far more efficient than from atmospheric sources. Whilst hydrocarbons have numerous downsides (whether sourced from fossil or renewable sources), they are also quite convenient, exceedingly well-proven, and tremendously useful. In some applications, particularly marine and aviation transport, there are few if any viable alternatives. I've commented on this numerous times at HN over the years: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20fischer-Tropsch&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>.
    • mapontosevenths 8mo ago
      I hadn't heard of Fischer-Tropsch. Looks like it usually works based on gassification of biomass or existing fossil fuels, so it seems at first glance that it has the same negative externalities as just burning the source material doesn't it? The Sabatier process looks like it might have much less of that! Very cool stuff. I would love to see a future in which we use uninhabitable, non-arable, desert land to generate cheap synfuel that we can ship wherever needed.
      • adrian_b 8mo ago
        Fischer-Tropsch is based on the reaction of carbon monoxide with dihydrogen (free hydrogen). This mixture is known as syngas. While now the cheapest way is to make syngas from methane or from coal, it is possible to make syngas from carbon dioxide that reacts with electrolytic hydrogen. It is also possible to make equivalent precursors of synthetic hydrocarbons by the electrolysis of carbon dioxide in water. For these 2 methods, you do not need any fossil fuels, but only electrical energy for electrolysis. Where the energetic efficiency is still very low is when you want to use clean air as the source of CO2, instead of using a concentrated source of CO2. With very cheap energy, i.e. solar energy that is used at the point of capture, it should still be possible to devise a method of capture for CO2 from the air. Many such methods are known, their only problem being a high energy consumption per the amount of captured CO2, so they are impractical with energy that must be bought from the grid, but I do not see why they could not work when coupled directly with solar panels.
• ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
  The problem is all the effort = energy you need to spend collecting carbon atoms.
• _fizz_buzz_ 8mo ago
  We live (or at least used live) in a very nice climate equilibrium with the CO2 level we had. Pushing us into another climate equilibrium looks very dangerous for human civilization. However I concede that it might be advantageous for certain plants, but I am not a plant so I am mostly concerned about human civilization.
  • masklinn 8mo ago
    > However I concede that it might be advantageous for certain plants Plants are highly dependent on their climactic settings, upending a climate equilibrium is awful to the average plant. And looking at past climactic change events, "another climate equilibrium" is something that happens on kiloyear scales (ages, in geochronologic units).