r/science • u/Wagamaga • Aug 06 '20

Chemistry Turning carbon dioxide into liquid fuel. Scientists have discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product and low cost.

https://www.anl.gov/article/turning-carbon-dioxide-into-liquid-fuel
59.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/EnterTheErgosphere Aug 06 '20

Gasoline/kerosene are nearly perfect fuels from an engineering standpoint.

To be fair, they have had 100 years of engineering devoted to designing a system around that.

There are many, many ways to generate electricity. I think the real 100 yr hurdle ahead is solving the storage problem.

Edit: adjusted for battery tunnel vision

1

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '20

I'm pretty sure the context was not electricity generation. I'm pretty sure the context was of vehicle transport, and specifically smaller stuff which cannot fit a nuclear reactor, and especially long-distance trucking and especially especially long-distance aircraft.

2

u/EnterTheErgosphere Aug 07 '20

I agree! I'm thinking about both, personally.