[crimsonalucard1]

Doesn't the net CO2 in the air increase?

So you harvest CO2 to into fuel. That fuel is burned and the CO2 is released back into the air. So net difference is zero.

But to harvest the CO2 you needed to generate a high amount of heat. That's extra CO2. So net CO2 is more.

It depends on the cost of harvesting that CO2.

[pronoiac]

I couldn't fetch the article, so I'm looking at the ScienceDaily page.

It's a process to turn:

* otherwise-waste carbon dioxide into (taking electricity)

* syngas, which can be turned into

* synthetic diesel, methanol, alcohol or plastics

Plastics could be a carbon sink I guess.

[lykr0n]

You can use Solar and other renewable energy to power the conversion process. Progress is still progress.

I would much rather to pay more for net zero carbon fuel, then not do anything.

[perl4ever]

I do not understand the concept that a property of a sum of a bunch of numbers somehow applies to those components.

Whether something is net zero depends on what you are adding it to; it's not inherent in that thing.

It's like, if you have a pile of blue things, then the pile is also blue. But other characteristics do not work that way. If you have a pile of things that each weigh 1 lb, then the pile does not weigh 1 lb.

[readams]

If you make a hydrocarbon by taking CO2 from the air, and you use a carbon free energy source to do it, then burning that hydrocarbon is net zero carbon. That is, if all your hydrocarbons that you burn were made this way, then the atmospheric carbon doesn't increase because of your activity.

It acts just like a battery.

[perl4ever]

You're not telling me anything I don't know.

Look at it this way, do you believe CO2 is basically fungible in the context of global climate change?

[lykr0n]

Exactly. It's not a solution, but it's a way to stop the problem from getting worse.

It's like moving from a variable rate credit card to a 0% loan. You still have this pile of debt you need to deal with, but you more or less stop the problem from getting any worse.

[travisporter]

It’s actually strange that no gas company is advertising something like this. I’ve seen so many industries advertise even the tiniest carbon offsets but why can’t BP or Exxon sell a net zero or at least low emissions fuel

[effie]

It is really strange to you that oil company is not advertising a product that they don't have, a product which would compete with their regular product, a product which is hard to sell (more expensive and dubious value)? From the standpoint of these companies, there is plenty of oil down there, making synthetic one has no upside.

[travisporter]

Well, maybe not synthetic, but what if they said "use this gas for 10% more, we planted a tree for every gallon" or whatever. Even if it was complete bs, I'd think about it

[nordsieck]

> But to harvest the CO2 you needed to generate a high amount of heat. That's extra CO2. So net CO2 is more.

That depends on where they get their energy from.

[WJW]

You can get the required high amount of heat either through concentrating solar collectors or through any renewable form of electricity that you run through electric heaters. If you want to be fancy, you can use microwaves to very selectively heat only the parts you want to heat.