Engineers find neat way to turn waste carbon dioxide into useful material

Every time there’s a discussion about synthetic carbon fuels, there’s the same frustrating replies. I want to reply to those with one statement: the whole point is to use excess power from solar/wind. There’s always the same replies pointing out how it’s more efficient to use the power directly in EV batteries, laws of thermodynamics, and other similar things. Those completely miss the point. Solar/wind is going exponential and we have a big problem of storing excess power. Massive really massive amounts of batteries is one option. But converting that into carbon fuels that work directly in existing infrastructure and is effectively carbon neutral is a good option too. That’s where the discussion should be, not pointless arguments about efficiency of EVs.

The application doesn&#x27;t really make sense the way they explain it: use CO2 from a power plant to produce syngas. If the power plant burns methane, you might as well produce syngas straight out of methane, and short-circuit the step where you produce CO2. From the net energy usage point of view, you are better off (otherwise, you just found a recipe for perpetual motion).<p>Where this could make sense is energy storage. Say you are next to a large solar power plant, and you want to store the excess energy produced during the day and release it at night. Batteries are too expensive, pumped water requires some mountains, etc. With this, you store a quantity of CO2 in some tanks. At day you generate syngas and consume electricity, and store it in some other tanks. At night, you burn the syngas, get some of the initial electricity back, and store the CO2 back in its tanks.

<i>“We used an open flame, which burns at 2000 degrees, to create nanoparticles of zinc oxide that can then be used to convert CO2, using electricity, into syngas.”</i><p>Is this a real catalyst? (That is, it doesn&#x27;t get used up in the process.) Or do they have to keep making more zinc oxide clouds to keep the process going? The paper summary is unclear about the energy inputs to this process.<p>Costs $10 to read the paper.

Synfuels are very important for saving the climate. Yes, we need to eventually move all transportation to batteries, and we now have the technology to do that with cars and increasingly with trucking.<p>But for ocean ships and long-range airplanes we are nowhere near ready for that. And hydrogen fuel cells are not nearly good enough. So at least for many years the only way to make some important forms of transportation carbon-neutral will be synfuels

This looks like the same story: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedaily.com&#x2F;releases&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;200610152016.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedaily.com&#x2F;releases&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;200610152016.h...</a>

How are they converting CO2 into H2+CO? Where is the hydrogen coming from?

Slightly offtopic, what&#x27;s the easiest way to scrub CO2 from air (e.g. in a house) without using up consumable materials? Some form of pressure swing absorption?

Doesn&#x27;t the net CO2 in the air increase?<p>So you harvest CO2 to into fuel. That fuel is burned and the CO2 is released back into the air. So net difference is zero.<p>But to harvest the CO2 you needed to generate a high amount of heat. That&#x27;s extra CO2. So net CO2 is more.<p>It depends on the cost of harvesting that CO2.