How CO2 Could Be The Future Of Fuel | VICE on HBO

Interesting technology if it's really viable .......

This is great tech for a number of reasons. To be carbon neutral or carbon negative it will have to use renewable electricity, which works well, because these plants can work like a big battery and soak up peaks in electricity generation. Rather than electrical storage (batteries) they use the energy to create the CO2-based feedstock either for fuels or other industry.

The tech is well understood and the costs are coming down, hopefully the economics work out soon where this doesn't require a ton of subsidies.

One little possible problem. If they reduce CO2 in the atmosphere below 250ppm plants start to die and everybody starves.

Richard Cranium said:

Interesting technology if it's really viable .......

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It's got my vote! We can only hope that it doesn't get quashed by the powers-that-be

Fran Blacker said:

One little possible problem. If they reduce CO2 in the atmosphere below 250ppm plants start to die and everybody starves.

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I will gladly drive my Charger to save the planet!

Interesting concept....
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I like that way better than EV mandated BS
at least it doesn't kill IC engines
& Infrastructure or the jobs surrounding it
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I generally don't or won't watch anything on VICE
not my demographic at all

Fran Blacker said:

One little possible problem. If they reduce CO2 in the atmosphere below 250ppm plants start to die and everybody starves.

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It might take a while to undo 300+ years of carbon pollution. ;)

Keep in mind they are talking about using renewables to generate fuels using carbon that’s already in the atmosphere. Burn the fuels and the carbon is right back in the atmosphere. So, this is carbon neutral.

To go carbon negative they would need to bury the reclaimed carbon. It’s all doable, but there’s not currently much money in carbon sequestration.

I live near Squamish, never heard of any of their fuel for sale. That video is almost three years old, most of the recent news from that place emphasizes carbon capture rather than fuel manufacturing. https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/call-for-innovators/

Photon440 said:

I live near Squamish, never heard of any of their fuel for sale. That video is almost three years old, most of the recent news from that place emphasizes carbon capture rather than fuel manufacturing. https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/call-for-innovators/

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So, in other words it's another scam like the 70 mpg carburetor from the seventies.

I don't think it's a scam unless they fail to deliver goods or services that they've been paid for.

The tech works, it’s just not widely adopted yet.

How small of a unit could be produced. If the unit could be made to the size of generator a couple freezers, and have a storage tank that it pumped into, each homeowner could be their own gas station and pump when they need fuel. I'd buy one and a storage tank for my diesel on my farm.

OK, before I get serious, I'm going to have a little fun. First, they are in the middle of a field and yet they're wearing safety goggles, hard hats, and fire suits. REALLY?? Secondly, they're obviously talking to the non-technical folks that believe they want to be educated and informed (without really being educated and informed).

Now to get serious:

When any hydrocarbon (HC) fuel is burned (technical term is "oxidized"), it produces water vapor (H20) and carbon dioxide (CO2). When we breathe, we inhale air with about 20% oxygen and exhale CO2. Yes, our bodies have a low-temp incinerator built in. The entropy is HC-to-CO2 yields energy (exothermic). To convert CO2 to HC (endothermic) requires energy. HOWEVER: Michael Faraday made it a point to emphasize that whenever conversions are made (either way), there are inherent losses. In other words, if 30,000 BTU of energy in the form of gasoline is converted to power at the wheels of your Charger, you get maybe 5400 BTU-Equivalent units of power at the wheels. (US EPA claims that MODERN vehicles are 18.2% efficient at converting the energy in gasoline to mechanical power at the wheels.)

To extract the carbon from CO2 requires energy. To produce a HC fuel requires not only carbon, but also oxygen, which is derived from water, which requires even more energy to extract. To combine the carbon and hydrogen requires even more energy. Michael Faraday's Laws of Thermodynamics (originally published in the late 1800's) were created out of careful observations, and are still published in the newest science textbooks today. He said that (paraphrasing) "This crap is up-side-down".

The only way to cost-effectively extract the carbon from CO2 and produce an HC fuel is by utilizing "free" energy like solar or wind (or other). This means these factories must be located in areas with abundant sun light, wind, or a river. My rant doesn't mean I'm against the premise, but the video is SO misleading that I just know some of you think you can exhale into a 'gizmo' and get some sort of gasoline out the other end -- NOT!!