Comment by natch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by natch | Hacker News Reader

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Well no, this is really, fundamentally wrong-headed technology. We already have more than enough petroleum to catastrophically ruin our environment.

As AOC put it, climate change is our World War II. We won't solve it by sitting on our hands and being negative about the real solutions that are out there.

> But the rest of the world has added 15 gigatons since 1990. That 15 gigatons represents a shift from desperate poverty in Africa, India, and China

Citation needed. But just taking China alone, they are shifting massively away from carbon emitting technologies and into alternatives.

Carbon recapture is a nice dream. But I'm skeptical it will deliver anywhere near the level of impact needed. Much better is to stop carbon emission at its source by making more industries sustainable... case in point, transportation should transition to electric so it can draw on the ever increasing sources of sustainable energy in the grid.

It can be very useful for energy storage and keeping existing combustion plant usable. But the op does not seem to bear in mind the fact that it requires more energy input than it outputs in the form of a carbon neutral fuel, or that renewable technologies have by this date clearly demonstrated affordable solutions to carbon neutral power generation.

When I read about these schemes to produce gasoline from CO2 and water or whatever I can't help but think someone needs a couple of semesters of thermodynamics beat into them.

Nobody thinks they'll get net energy out of this. They're spending energy to make carbon-neutral liquid fuels. The energy would have to come from renewables or nuclear for this to be useful.

The energy return on energy invested is going to be abysmal.

No more than 20% if that. That translates into synth gasoline at $30/gallon

Considering electric planes aren't feasible yet, how else do you plan to decarbonize airplanes?

Short range electric planes are being manufactured presently.

This wont be able to decarbonize anything until surplus carbon free energy is generated for it use - that need not take decades with proper governmental policies, but it means this technology will not lead the way.

Replace, as far as practicable, with fast trains and maybe Hyperloops.

How do you figure?

Estimate the cost of the energy inputs per gallon of gasoline. Account for the inefficiency and you get $15-20/gal.

>> But just taking China alone, they are shifting massively away from carbon emitting technologies and into alternatives.

The data in the OP does not support this.

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