Science Memes

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Drift!! (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

That's simple enough, create a process where CO2 is removed from the air and turned into oil. The chemistry of the individual steps is already known and achievable, the hard part is the energy input required to make it work.

Edit: Okay so I typed the reply and then went and read the paper. Turns out that what I described is kinda-sorta what they've done, although it's certainly not a finished or industrially viable process at this point.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly. There are already several prototypes for products ranging from plastics to construction materials to butter (yes, really) made from captured carbon.

It needs to be profitable, desirable, and competitively priced (when applicable) for VCs to put their chips in the pot. That, we have yet to see.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This is a bit of an issue when what they want out of the oil is the energy. If you have enough energy to make oil, why not just use the energy directly?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

the one vaguely sensible use case is as portable fuel, but then it raises questions such as "why do we still have combustion cars" and "don't cars actually kinda suck? shouldn't we be running more trains instead?"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, hydrocarbons are probably going to be really good energy storage for airplanes and gas turbine generators. Outside of that, I don't see much use for a rare, dirty, hot, energy source. Rockets I guess.