A team of scientists has figured out how to convert planet-warming carbon dioxide into a harmless powdery fuel that could be converted into clean electricity
Good luck dealing with megatonnes of this powder if you ever want to make a small dent in global emissions. It’s one thing to capture it, but the sheer amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere is such that we wouldn’t be able to handle the amount of product that this process makes.
All the CO2 in the atmosphere weights on the order of 10^15 kg. That’s roughly the size of a lake like the Titicaca lake. I did not do all the calculation as sodium formate is heavier than water but part of its weight is from added atoms (sodium and hydrogen) but that gives a scale of the room it would take. More likely, every country would have a few storage facilities, probably in closed down mines.
Good luck dealing with megatonnes of this powder if you ever want to make a small dent in global emissions. It’s one thing to capture it, but the sheer amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere is such that we wouldn’t be able to handle the amount of product that this process makes.
All the CO2 in the atmosphere weights on the order of 10^15 kg. That’s roughly the size of a lake like the Titicaca lake. I did not do all the calculation as sodium formate is heavier than water but part of its weight is from added atoms (sodium and hydrogen) but that gives a scale of the room it would take. More likely, every country would have a few storage facilities, probably in closed down mines.