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.

[u/Wagamaga]

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

[u/overengineered]

It's not quite as cut and dry as ethanol is less efficient. It is overall. It is less energy dense than other liquid fuels. But saying your going to drop ethanol into a current tech diesel is not a comparable use case. The engine can be redesigned to run as efficient as currently available options, but you will still need to carry more fuel to go the same distance, cause there is less energy/unit volume for ethanol than diesel.

Racers like it because it burns ultra fast and they can take engine RPM's to extremes but don't care about being able to go long distances before filling up.

Ethanol: more fuel needed for the same amount of work, ethanol eats rubber like candy, so entirety of the engine seals will be replaced at about 3x the rate of a comparable E-10 (US pump grade 87octane) with out using exotic (read expensive and hard to get) materials. Ethanol does: burn very clean in comparison. After treatment systems for exhaust would be greatly reduced in cost and complexity and you could in theory have more cars operational at once and still reduce emissions.

Diesel: longer chain, larger molecule overall. Much more energy/ unit volume, does not eat rubber, easily refined along with many other products that we make already. But... The exhaust output of diesel fuel contains an amount of carcinogens and truly nasty stuff that is just unacceptable to keep dumping into the air we need to breath at the rate we are currently.

[u/truthovertribe → u/overengineered]

Thanks for the info

[u/UkonFujiwara → u/overengineered]

Thanks for the response, I think I get it now.