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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

"The tailpipe emissions are only CO2 and water," explains Mr van Cappellen. "No other harmful gases like nitric oxides, soot or sulphuric oxides are emitted."

The same is true of the complete combustion of petrol and other hydrocarbon fuels. I remember the same was said of propane when it became the popular alternative fuel several decades ago.

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The CO2 is also an input; it originally comes from the environment, so this is net-zero emissions in the same way that biofuels are. From the article:

   Although the bus emits CO2, Team Fast argues that the original CO2 used to create the hydrozine is 
   taken from existing sources, such as air or exhaust fumes, so that no additional CO2 is produced
    - it's a closed carbon cycle in the jargon.

It sounds like the application of this fuel is meant to be alongside carbon capture, so there's no net emissions at all.

True if combustion occurs in pure oxygen. Combustion of petrol fuels in an automobile tends to produce nitrogen oxides from the nitrogen in the atmosphere. I assume fuel cell reactions don't do this.

I think the core of the idea is that formic acid is easier to synthesize than other hydrocarbon fuels, while being easier to handle than pure hydrogen. It's also split into hydrogen and CO2 in this process, not burned, which could happen cleaner than practical combustion?

The idea here is that the acid is made from elements already floating around in nature, and thus the exhaust do not introduce more than the production initially removed. This unlike petrochemicals because the exhaust gasses is in addition to what is already out there.

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