The main reason why this process isn’t “something for nothing” is that it takes twice as much electrical energy to produce energy in the form of gasoline. As Aircela told The Autopian:
Aircela is targeting >50% end to end power efficiency. Since there is about 37kWh of energy in a gallon of gasoline we will require about 75kWh to make it. When we power our machines with standalone, off-grid, photovoltaic panels this will correspond to less than $1.50/gallon in energy cost.
Doesn’t it sort of defeat the purpose of gasoline being used because it’s so energy dense? Like, this seems to suggest little more than the benefits of electrification in transport.
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I’m assuming we can say this is carbon neutral, since the only carbon is being pulled out of the atmosphere in the first place, but it’s still combustion, and carbon isn’t the only concern there.
Humans in 80,000 BCE:
“We have to do something about this global warming”
“I know, let’s scrub the air of methane and CO2 and store it deep underground! Then we’ll never have to worry about global warming ever again!”
Assuming we never get more energy dense batteries, this would be one way to make air transport carbon neutral.
It’s far worse than batteries for cars, but batteries aren’t practical everywhere yet. Every bit helps.
so turn air into gasoline, burn the gasoline and replace the air with crap that is the burning product. So this is kind of a terraforming device that will make the planet inhabitable for us even faster if used widely and large scale enough.
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