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MIT engineers make converting CO2 into useful products more practical

(news.mit.edu)
173 points rbanffy | 2 comments | 13 Nov 24 15:42 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bitwize ◴[13 Nov 24 17:06 UTC] No.42127852[source]▶
My wife actually has established a cheap, energy-efficient facility for converting CO2 into useful materials right in our yard.

She planted a garden.

I was thinking about that the other day, how our beautiful trees, flowers, and bushes draw a few minerals from the soil, but are really mainly knitted together from the components of water and CO2.

Yes, yes, I know, planting more trees won't do much about the greenhouse gas problem at scale, but the only thing that will are the three P's: powerdown, permaculture, population control. I do not expect industry to solve the problem industry created in a way that doesn't create more problems.

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1. parpfish ◴[13 Nov 24 17:26 UTC] No.42128061[source]▶
> I do not expect industry to solve the problem industry created in a way that doesn't create more problems.

but it's not one "industry" that has to change their mind, this'd create a whole new secondary industry that is able to profit from negative externalities made by the former.

capitalism got us into this mess, but it's also the only thing powerful enough to get us out.

if we can get tech that allows us to make an economic case for reducing atmospheric CO2, it would be far more robust than relying on government regulation and/or unpopular moral appeals that ask people to sacrifice.

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2. bluGill ◴[13 Nov 24 18:40 UTC] No.42128696[source]▶
Just switch to EVs for transportation and it will be hard for the oil industry to keep going. Many wells will be closed despite being potentially productive just because there isn't enough demand to keep them maintained. Prices are likely to go up for plastics if there isn't much demand for oil as fuel just to keep all the oil stuff maintained - much of which is too big for their needs so the industry faces shutting down working refineries and building new smaller ones or operating the current ones at low capacity. And of course the plastics industry is also interested in going green, so if this isn't too much more expensive than oil based plastic they will switch anyway.

The question is how cheap can we do this process and how fast can we get transportation off of oil.