Hacker News Reader

Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

Right now jet fuel comes from the ground, so we are actively adding to the atmospheric stock. This gives a way to leave that carbon stored and use what’s in the atmosphere instead.

And if they can extract it economically, governments or private actors can pay them to sequester some of the carbon instead.

View on HN

One day we may be producing jet fuel! For now, the same exact logic applies to CO2 production: every new ton consumed = a new ton in the sky. If businesses use reclaimed CO2 to run their process, no new tons end up in the sky due to their operations since it started in the sky in the first place.

I'm confused how this project related to jet fuel or displaces the production of oil products in general.

Oh sorry I read things too quickly. There had been a lot of discussions of what to do with things that still require co2 and can’t easily be electrified, jet fuel being the typical case. “Suck it from the sky and use that” has been one common proposal for how to handle those carbon holdouts.

So my brain immediately leapt to that when drafting the comment. But as the OP says same logic applies to any carbon use. If you can use co2 from the sky you don’t need to take it out of sequestration in the ground.

CO2 in its native form is not extracted from the ground. It is almost always produced industrially as a byproduct of another industrial process, like alcohol fermentation or cement manufacture. The point other people are making is that these processes will continue because the main product is also valuable. Until this company gets sequestration working (which they claim to be working on), then this venture on its own won’t have much impact on CO2 emissions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com