<story><title>Engineers find neat way to turn waste carbon dioxide into useful material</title><url>https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/engineers-find-neat-way-turn-waste-carbon-dioxide-useful-material</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bit_logic</author><text>Every time there’s a discussion about synthetic carbon fuels, there’s the same frustrating replies.  I want to reply to those with one statement: the whole point is to use excess power from solar&amp;#x2F;wind.  There’s always the same replies pointing out how it’s more efficient to use the power directly in EV batteries, laws of thermodynamics, and other similar things.  Those completely miss the point.  Solar&amp;#x2F;wind is going exponential and we have a big problem of storing excess power.  Massive really massive amounts of batteries is one option.  But converting that into carbon fuels that work directly in existing infrastructure and is effectively carbon neutral is a good option too.  That’s where the discussion should be, not pointless arguments about efficiency of EVs.</text></comment>
<story><title>Engineers find neat way to turn waste carbon dioxide into useful material</title><url>https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/engineers-find-neat-way-turn-waste-carbon-dioxide-useful-material</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Animats</author><text>&lt;i&gt;“We used an open flame, which burns at 2000 degrees, to create nanoparticles of zinc oxide that can then be used to convert CO2, using electricity, into syngas.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is this a real catalyst? (That is, it doesn&amp;#x27;t get used up in the process.) Or do they have to keep making more zinc oxide clouds to keep the process going?  The paper summary is unclear about the energy inputs to this process.&lt;p&gt;Costs $10 to read the paper.</text></comment>