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Comment by semi-extrinsic | Hacker News Reader

The paper probably isn't out yet. But there is quite some previous research on using MOFs to make fuel from CO2:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=MOF+...

The challenge in that regard is always: turning CO2 to fuel takes at least as much chemical energy as was released from burning the fuel to CO2 in the first place. If you have that (presumably emissions-free) energy available, it's infinitely better to not burn the fuel in the first place and use the emissions-free energy for something else.

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Could you put a nuclear power plant far away from human civilization, and then use nuclear power to convert excess atmospheric CO2 to liquid fuel, and ship the liquid back to civilization? Reduces the NIMBYism (and risk) of nuclear, while also reducing atmospheric CO2.

Yeah, in theory. But nuclear NIMBYism might prove too strong for even that. It will be interesting (scary) to see how this game of chicken plays out. Will fear of nuclear prevail for much longer over fear of climate change?

I'm not sure there's a place far away enough, while still relatively free from regular natural disasters (and human disasters, like war). It's not like high-voltage transmissions lines are very lossy, so if putting plants far away was enough to assuage the nuclear fears, we'd probably have them already.

The main problem with putting nuclear reactors far enough away from everyone is that they need to be cooled, which means a water supply. There aren't that many places that have plenty of water for cooling, but no people. And most of the places that do fit that description already have a nuclear power station.

We already do this, just with corn instead of MOFs

Unless you don’t have storage that is competitive with the energy density of carbon fuels.

Yes, but batteries can't do everything yet. To whatever extent we keep using liquid fuels, it'd be nice if they were carbon neutral.

Ammonia. Liquid or compressed hydrogen. There's several options that are just as feasible with nice energy densities and that reduce CO2 emissions much faster.

But it allows you to take energy which was generated from renewable and use it with existing fossil-fuel infrastructure.

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