This discovery could be big green energy news

Dannyalcatraz · Oct 18, 2016

New process for converting CO2 into ethanol at room temperatures using nanotechnology, common materials, and with few unwanted byproducts:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/convert-co2-into-ethanol/?ref=yfp

Especially in the context of this article:
http://www.vox.com/energy-and-envir...-climate-change-facts-effects-cartoon?ref=yfp

If the process' creators are correct, and their discovery works as advertised, this kills 2 birds with one stone in a way that helps us slow down- and maybe even reverses- our march to 2deg in global temp increases.

Umbran · Oct 18, 2016

Note, no matter what the articles sub-headline says, turning CO2 into ethanol - a highly flammable, biodegradable substance - will not in and of itself net a loss of CO2 from the atmosphere long-term. As soon as it burns or degrades, that carbon is re-released. This can capture the carbon, but hen you must *sequester* it for it to net remove CO2 from the air.

And, of course, it *takes energy* to make this reaction run.

So, this can enable a conversion of solar or wind power into fuel for use elsewhere/elsewhen, effectively allowing your car to run on wind, without messing around with a battery (you know, those batteries are chemically kind of nasty, and recycling them is no picnic), or allowing for energy production when solar output is curtailed by clouds. These are good things, and can help reduce our use of fossil fuels, and limit release of additional carbon. But, you still need the solar or wind (or tidal, or what have you) power source.

RangerWickett · Oct 18, 2016

What he said.

Janx · Oct 18, 2016

is it just me, or is there no cure for the cost of our modern lifestyle but to give up our modern lifestyle?

Which in turn would reduce crop yields (all the farming tech also has environmental costs to create and run it).

Which in turn would lead to starvation and disease.

We're on a treadmill that we can't get off.

Dannyalcatraz · Oct 18, 2016

Certainly, it isn't a panacea, but if it pollutes less than other ethanol production methods, that's a win.

If we can use this to go extant Co2=> ethanol=>extant CO2=>ethanol instead of new ethanol=>CO2=>new ethanol=>CO2 on a mass scale, that should amount to a significant reduction in the amount we're adding to the atmosphere. If nothing else, that buys time to develop true CO2 sequestration techniques.

tuxgeo · Oct 18, 2016

We can get off the treadmill by recycling the carbon, as Umbran said: use renewable energy to drive the conversion process of CO2 to ethanol (etc.?) and use the resulting fuel to power our lifestyle.

As for removing/sequestering carbon from the atmosphere: plant trees. An old coastal redwood tends to really put on the pounds in terms of converting water, minerals, light, and CO2 into new wood; some other conifers do the same (Grand Fir, Douglas Fir, and Ponderosa Pine all get quite big); English Oak gets over 100 feet tall.

Edit: Ninja'd by Danny A.

doctorbadwolf · Oct 18, 2016

Janx said:
is it just me, or is there no cure for the cost of our modern lifestyle but to give up our modern lifestyle?

Which in turn would reduce crop yields (all the farming tech also has environmental costs to create and run it).

Which in turn would lead to starvation and disease.

We're on a treadmill that we can't get off.

Nope. There are all manner of things we can do to improve the situation and eventually fix it.

less meat

, less food waste (most of it in the US is entirely avoidable), more sustainable farming (see Africa's new/old greenbelt farming that is reclaiming the southern Sahara, and making crops less resource intensive to farm), more public transport and cleaner cars, less jet fuel in the air (lots of ideas and argument on how to do that one), reforestation and afforestation projects, green architecture (flora covered buildings, renewable powered buildings), renewable power for cities and public transport, solar powered farm/industrial equipment and clean freight transportation, not to mention plant based fuels, home/community farms/gardens, etc.

solar power can be exported already, so putting solar on every viable rooftop and over every parking lot in every major city is a huge step that has to happen, and isn't as limited by weather as you probably think.

There are whole regions where the wind basically never stops.

Upgrade dam infrastructure.

Tidal power is a thing. Use it. It's basically underwater wind energy.

governments need to be putting money into battery technology improvements.

Its far from hopeless

doctorbadwolf · Oct 18, 2016

tuxgeo said:
We can get off the treadmill by recycling the carbon, as Umbran said: use renewable energy to drive the conversion process of CO2 to ethanol (etc.?) and use the resulting fuel to power our lifestyle.

As for removing/sequestering carbon from the atmosphere: plant trees. An old coastal redwood tends to really put on the pounds in terms of converting water, minerals, light, and CO2 into new wood; some other conifers do the same (Grand Fir, Douglas Fir, and Ponderosa Pine all get quite big); English Oak gets over 100 feet tall.

Edit: Ninja'd by Danny A.

And trees are a very long term carbon sink. Also, many many crops grow better when planted in fields with trees, and need significantly less fertalizer.

Give people property tax breaks for planting new trees and for not cutting down existing trees on their properties.

Build continental water infrastructure so that whole regions of a continent don't dry out and lose significant portions of their carbon eating plantlife. (Not to mention all the jobs that would create, and the other various beneilfits of making a region drought resistent).

Umbran · Oct 18, 2016

Janx said:
is it just me, or is there no cure for the cost of our modern lifestyle but to give up our modern lifestyle?

As my thermodynamics professor told me, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Anything done on an industrial scale will have industrial-scale impacts. With seven billion people in the world, we cannot avoid having impacts, and can at best only choose what those impacts will be.

Which in turn would reduce crop yields (all the farming tech also has environmental costs to create and run it).

I don't think agriculture is the section of our modern lifestyle that's the major issue. Actually growing food is perhaps 1% or 2% of the overall energy budget. Hauling it around also costs quite a bit. The Transportation sector is about 30% of our energy budget, but much of that is hauling around things that aren't food. So, we are probably talking about 80% or more of our energy use isn't about feeding us. Presumably, we could make lifestyle choices that reduced that, probably even drastically, without notably impacting our ability to keep people fed.

Dannyalcatraz · Oct 18, 2016

Carpooling/public transportation, for instance.

Or cutting down on one I see that frosts me: people idling their cars for 30+ minutes. I'm in Texas, and have lived most of my life in the South, so I understand the The Miracle of Air Conditioning. But if you're going to sit in a car for someone who is shopping, eating at a drive-in like Sonic, or making (what is essentially) a gasoline powered phone call, and you're running the AC? Big, polluting waste of money.

Either go inside where it's cooler or put in your big boy pants, roll the windows down, and deal with the heat.