Actually it uses a fair amount of energy, not just that, but the idea is to use it to create fuel, so it also takes all of the energy that they plan to store in the fuel.
These things would work best in a windy environment (as otherwise the air gets CO2 depleted). You take that and add a windmill or two (or a few hundred), and water, and some catalysts and a lot of research, and you should be able to create hydrocarbon fuels.
The energy does come from sunlight or wind. I've attended a talk by one of the researchers. The thermodynamics worked out was such that you take a windmill, attach it to the CO2 extractor and store the energy.
Well, actually they do do things other than just nuclear. I spent last summer at LANL researching the most effective ways to vaccinate the public to prevent an epidemic of various diseases.
I worked at Los Alamos last summer and attended a talk by one of the researchers involved (who is also president of the New Mexico Solar Power Association). Most of the hour long talk was devoted to the thermodynamics involved.
You rightly note that they need a lot of energy. Luckily, solar power and wind power can generally be found in abundance in the places they plan on doing this. That is how they expect it to work. And yes, the thermodynamics say it can work.
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Actually it uses a fair amount of energy, not just that, but the idea is to use it to create fuel, so it also takes all of the energy that they plan to store in the fuel.
These things would work best in a windy environment (as otherwise the air gets CO2 depleted). You take that and add a windmill or two (or a few hundred), and water, and some catalysts and a lot of research, and you should be able to create hydrocarbon fuels.
The energy does come from sunlight or wind. I've attended a talk by one of the researchers. The thermodynamics worked out was such that you take a windmill, attach it to the CO2 extractor and store the energy.
Well, actually they do do things other than just nuclear. I spent last summer at LANL researching the most effective ways to vaccinate the public to prevent an epidemic of various diseases.
I worked at Los Alamos last summer and attended a talk by one of the researchers involved (who is also president of the New Mexico Solar Power Association). Most of the hour long talk was devoted to the thermodynamics involved.
You rightly note that they need a lot of energy. Luckily, solar power and wind power can generally be found in abundance in the places they plan on doing this. That is how they expect it to work. And yes, the thermodynamics say it can work.