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Comment by smsm42 | Hacker News Reader

This technology already exists.

Step 1: grow trees (or any other plants, in fact)

Step 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator

Not the most clean or efficient technology, to be sure, but has been around for almost 100 years now (the second part, the first part a bit longer).

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Yeah, I meant figuring out how to do it so efficiently that it becomes preferable to batteries for powering cars. We talk like it is certain that battery-powered cars will win out, but I haven't seen a proof that that is how it must turns out if we learn to create nanomachines that use solar energy to suck carbon from air.

Unfortunately, physics says battery-powered cars have won.

Using solar to power a process to make a fuel before burning a fuel that at best (way less in reality) uses 2x more energy than just powering an electric motor directly is not sensical.

And the battery makes the car 1.3 times the weight of a gas-powered car. Making the battery requires much more energy than making a gas tank. The charging infrastructure might prove more expensive than a network of gas stations. Long trips are punctuated by idle periods needed for the battery to charge, so the car's "utilization rate" is lower than a gas-powered car. All I am saying is that it is not 1.00 certain which technology will retain the lowest total cost of ownership as both technologies improve: battery tech is more likely to win, but not certain to win.

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