A team of scientists has figured out how to convert planet-warming carbon dioxide into a harmless powdery fuel that could be converted into clean electricity
The question to always ask with these articles is: Is this process prohibitively expensive, or does the process output more CO2 overall than you input? It’s always one of the two.
A third question is, can it scale up to what’s needed to begin to make a dent in the problem. The answer will unfortunately always be no, not even close. That’s how much we’ve put in the air and oceans, the numbers are huge.
I don’t believe it’s a waste of resources to research these things, but it gets old seeing the same headline every month for decades on end. At this point, if it isn’t an actionable process, don’t bother wasting my time with an article.
Storing carbon as sodium formate has the same problem as storing it as trees - bacteria will eat it and release CO2. Its also not useful as portable fuel - its energy density is an order of magnitude less than kerosene.
Its potential use as a battery is interesting though. I can imagine a system where a long lasting catalyst is used to fill a tank of sodium formate using waste CO2 from industrial processes and excess electrical generation capacity from renewable sources like wind and solar, and the machines that use sodium formate to generate electricity at times of low wind and solar generation could potentially be less polluting overall compared to mining lithium for new batteries and recycling worn out lithium batteries.
These articles always avoid answering questions like that and are never detailed enough to inform you. I read this as, without the facts to support it, their process is similarly efficient to others, but yields a more stable end product. If the process scales, it will be more suitable for long term storage than previous attempts
Actually they miss the bigger truth. Unless we direct the bulk of the world’s resources by dismantling the current world order, this shit ain’t ever happening, and the climate is going to cripple the world order inevitably.
The question to always ask with these articles is: Is this process prohibitively expensive, or does the process output more CO2 overall than you input? It’s always one of the two.
A third question is, can it scale up to what’s needed to begin to make a dent in the problem. The answer will unfortunately always be no, not even close. That’s how much we’ve put in the air and oceans, the numbers are huge.
the articke does focus on that as a big hurdle, with this “valley of death” analogy
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I don’t believe it’s a waste of resources to research these things, but it gets old seeing the same headline every month for decades on end. At this point, if it isn’t an actionable process, don’t bother wasting my time with an article.
The Reddit Defeatist Brigade came to lemmy pretty fast, didn’t it?
Storing carbon as sodium formate has the same problem as storing it as trees - bacteria will eat it and release CO2. Its also not useful as portable fuel - its energy density is an order of magnitude less than kerosene.
Its potential use as a battery is interesting though. I can imagine a system where a long lasting catalyst is used to fill a tank of sodium formate using waste CO2 from industrial processes and excess electrical generation capacity from renewable sources like wind and solar, and the machines that use sodium formate to generate electricity at times of low wind and solar generation could potentially be less polluting overall compared to mining lithium for new batteries and recycling worn out lithium batteries.
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Don’t decomposing plants spawn new, live plants? Acorns or something, I dunno. I’m not a biologist.
Another greenwashing method.
The slow boil will continue
These articles always avoid answering questions like that and are never detailed enough to inform you. I read this as, without the facts to support it, their process is similarly efficient to others, but yields a more stable end product. If the process scales, it will be more suitable for long term storage than previous attempts
Actually they miss the bigger truth. Unless we direct the bulk of the world’s resources by dismantling the current world order, this shit ain’t ever happening, and the climate is going to cripple the world order inevitably.
A bleak view, but I certainly can’t blame you for holding it.