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Splitting Water For Fuel While Removing CO2 From the Air (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A new study led by the University of California, Santa Cruz's Greg Rau highlights another tool for our CO2 removal toolbox: splitting seawater to produce hydrogen gas for fuel while capturing CO2 with ocean chemistry. In electrolysis, a device powered by electricity is used to split H2O, producing hydrogen gas. Several chemical modifications to this process have been proposed that can also grab CO2 from the atmosphere. Like the idea of using biofuels, this represents a "win-win" by producing an energy resource while capturing CO2, bringing the cost down. [T]he gist is that atmospheric CO2 goes into the ocean as bicarbonate -- which won't acidify the water or harm ecosystems. So if you power the electrolysis process with renewable energy, you can turn solar/wind/hydroelectric energy into hydrogen fuel while also removing CO2 from the air.
The new study focuses on a basic estimate of the cost and maximum potential of this technique. First, the researchers worked out its efficiency of CO2 capture -- about 0.3 tons captured per gigajoule of electricity input, including the losses from quarrying and crushing rock. That's around 10 times greater than biofuel schemes, but it depends on the assumption that there is demand for all the hydrogen fuel you make. The hydrogen can be used by vehicles, and there's the possibility of using hydrogen as a type of storage for the electric grid -- using excess power to make hydrogen that can run a power plant when needed. So it's not too farfetched that demand could rise to meet supply. The researchers' back-of-the-envelope estimate puts the cost of this system at between $3 and $161 per ton of captured CO2, depending on which type of renewable energy powers it. The study has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The new study focuses on a basic estimate of the cost and maximum potential of this technique. First, the researchers worked out its efficiency of CO2 capture -- about 0.3 tons captured per gigajoule of electricity input, including the losses from quarrying and crushing rock. That's around 10 times greater than biofuel schemes, but it depends on the assumption that there is demand for all the hydrogen fuel you make. The hydrogen can be used by vehicles, and there's the possibility of using hydrogen as a type of storage for the electric grid -- using excess power to make hydrogen that can run a power plant when needed. So it's not too farfetched that demand could rise to meet supply. The researchers' back-of-the-envelope estimate puts the cost of this system at between $3 and $161 per ton of captured CO2, depending on which type of renewable energy powers it. The study has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
$3 trillion is a drop in the bucket and sounds way too good to be true, so I think you've got your numbers wrong. Climate change is projected to cost the world economy $33 trillion a year by 2050, and already costs the USA alone $300B a year (couldn't find a figure for current worldwide annual cost, but you can assume that it must in the trillions).
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They want hydrogen cars to be big because they missed the boat on battery electric and a lot of the basic tech is now owned by other companies. They are facing either having to delay their EVs to wait out the patents or pay royalties, and all the while need to do their own EV R&D to avoid falling further behind.
Battery electric has already won. We already have 99% of the infrastructure in place.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
How am I getting a zero and this guy is getting a five. You can't dissolve the CO2 into water without adding a bunch of rock to it. A lot of rock. It's probably more efficient just spreading the rock out on the ground and letting it suck the CO2 out of the air. You guys are coders and don't know crap about chemistry. Balance those equations.