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173 points rbanffy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 2.015s | source
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jandrese ◴[] No.42127841[source]
The article annoyingly failed to close the loop from the $1,000/ton figure at the top and do the math on the economic efficiency potential of this approach. How much electricity is required to sequester each ton of CO2 using this method, assuming you can amortize the construction costs over some long duration? I assume the intended installation is on the exhaust of a fossil fuel burning facility, but is it possible to install this next to a solar field and generate ethylene from excess mid-day production? Large scale carbon sequestration is one of the major unsolved problems of the 21st century and we have to expect many false starts before the really viable technologies emerge.
replies(4): >>42127972 #>>42128070 #>>42128429 #>>42129607 #
1. kleton ◴[] No.42128429[source]
If they are sequestering by reducing (in the sense of donating electrons to) carbon, then that will, by thermodynamic necessity, require more energy input than oxidizing that carbon originally provided. Converting to ethylene, as they mention in the article, is such a process.