Comment by redthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by redthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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A mechanism, maybe, but one so expensive, ineffective, and impractical as to be fantastic.

Splitting CO2 will always require more energy than was released in making it. Where does that energy come from? They say solar panels. Because of course they do. But why would you burn fossil fuels to make energy, then use solar panels to turn CO2 into batteries? Why not just use solar panels in the first place? It would be far more efficient.

Also, we put about 10 Gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. 2.7Gt of that is carbon. Just how many batteries are you planning on making from that? Does each person on Earth need half a ton of batteries?

Who's absorbing the astronomical costs of making batteries with atmospheric CO2, rather than with any of the sane carbon sources just lying around?

This plan is nonsensical. It's like solar roadways. It's stupidly expensive, and it just won't work. It's another bogus project dreamed up to make use of green tech research grants that will never see the light of day.

Half a ton of Lithium-ion for comparison is 50-100kWh of storage. Which actually isn't that crazy. A Tesla per person per year, give or take.

Depending on the lifetime of the batteries, it's probably not far from what it would actually take to switch over to renewable energy while bringing the rest of the world up to a western standard of life.

But you're absolutely right that it's nonsensical to harvest carbon from the atmosphere while you're still pumping it in. That's product design driven by PR, not engineering.

And that points to the rest of it being bullshit as well.

Solar power whether employed by plants or machines. I'd vote on plant absorption myself.

Many solar systems need batteries in the first place though. Of course, whether it is actually feasible to get the energy needed solely using solar panels is a different matter.

I believe you're right. I hold out some hope someone will come up with a magic atmospheric CCS, but realistically what we're doing is lying to ourselves that global-scale negative emissions will become feasible, because it's the only way we haven't already wrecked the planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=529Og_YR0IU

> But why would you burn fossil fuels to make energy, then use solar panels to turn CO2 into batteries?

Because airplanes cannot fly on solar/batteries just yet?

Anyway, I agree with your main point.

I suppose you've read James Hansen or Kevin Anderson's latest work on climate change, right?

Please illuminate us.

They represent their research better than I can. Just search for the names followed by "2016" and pick your favorite source...

The basic idea is that we are well beyond reasonable co2 levels and that geological time is just catching up. But again, I'm no substitute for these well regarded scientists so it's best to read their research. There's a science based show named radio ecoshock if you're interested.

Yes I imagine most people in the future will need a significant amount of batteries. For the home to store energy when the solar panels are not receiving sunlight e.g. Powerwall. And also for the car, phone, tablet, laptop etc. Batteries are going to be an increasingly critical part of the power lifecycle.

And solar roadways do work. But at least in current incarnations are better suited for pavements, open areas. And it may be expensive but that's only because we don't ascribe costs properly to fossil fuels e.g. carbon tax, health tax etc.

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