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Comment by runtu | Hacker News Reader

> removing about 4.5lb of Carbon-dioxide per 20,000 miles

In familiar units: 0.05 g/km. Contrast that to the ~100 g/km emitted by a modern ICE car with decent efficiency. Of course, as mentioned:

> same amount of carbon as a mature tree absorbs annually

Is enough of a comparison to understand that this is more of a gimmick than a viable solution to anything.

Cool student project nonetheless; the "dashboard made of cooking oil", 3D printed parts and the added solar panels are likely of more significance.

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Genuine question, is it a good start? When does become not a gimmick? At 0.5g/km, 5g/km or 100g/km?

We need to optimize for "tonnes of CO2 scrubbed per dollar". This cost includes capital cost, and energy cost.

Because location doesn't matter, putting lots of small battery-powered mobile units is always going to lose to a large fixed industrial unit with an industrial-scale energy supply. Probably orders of magnitude worse on both CAPEX and OPEX.

Who is going to be paying for "large fixed industrial unit with an industrial-scale energy supply"?

If few will pay for it, then even fewer will pay for more expensive and less efficient mobile units.

Who is going to pay for a lot of extra power and reduced driving range for the idea in the article, the power costing far in excess per year than planting two trees (which would do more for the environment)?

Anyone can, that's actually another benefit. It can be funded by anyone who wants to.

Then we're at the tragedy of the commons and no one will.

Well ... yes?

I's clear that with many environmental matters, and specifically atmospheric CO2, we are at the tragedy of the commons, and have been for a long while, and strategies should be around getting us out of there.

> We need to optimize for "tonnes of CO2 scrubbed per dollar"

No, we need to look at externalities and real world long term side effects.

The "per dollar" part is why we're in the current situation in the first place

Solutions have to come from reality, and in reality nothing happens without money. Even socialism requires money.

> Genuine question, is it a good start?

No, because it doesn't scale, and its dramatically worse than a lot of other approaches, which range from 'also don't scale' to 'somewhat scale'.

So if we get about 2000-3000 of these for every other car in the world (there's only like a billion, right?) we should be set :)

> this is more of a gimmick than a viable solution to anything

It is a positive gain, even if small. Now multiply that gain across thousands of cars (assuming this tech became mass market) and you have a significant positive impact.

The car would be lighter and more aerodynamic and require less energy to produce without the scrubbers, the idea is a net loss.

CO2 is a very large and global-scale problem. If everyone does just a little, all you get is a little, but on a global scale.

if you could trade your old car for one of those: definetly.

if you have to pay any amount comparable to a low-end car: maybe.

any more than that and the answer becomes: highly unlikely.

but whether or not this is a good idea or efficient under any definition of the word? idk. probably a bad idea, too consumer oriented for a problem that could be better tackled on a larger scale

Probably every technology starts out expensive and inefficient, but fortunately we don't just stop because we don't see the immediate benefit.

Computers were once huge and slow and inefficient, but now for example we have Raspberry Pi which is orders of magnitude faster, cheaper, smaller, and more energy efficient than most computers 15+ years ago.

This new carbon capture tech could see similar gains.

then go ahead and improve it, nobody is telling anyone to stop improving shit. but claiming you could use a tech at a point in time where it is not much more than a gimmick, people wont take it serious or too serious. just like with ChatGPT: just because it can return highly probable language doesnt mean its correct.

just because you can drive one "artificial tree" around doesnt mean you should pursue in making those on a scale fit to dent the problem, because in making those "trees" you just release more dead-tree-gas and make the problem worse before you can make it better.

> but claiming you could use a tech at a point in time

Where did I specify the point in time when this would be practical?

> nobody is telling anyone to stop improving shit

Look up "vitriolic". Also ask yourself why you are so angry at a stranger's neutral comments. This kind of interaction does not make the internet a better place.

who is angry?

im just stating the obvious, idk why you feel the need to defend this, but if you are affiliated with the team then just go back to the drawing board and dont waste your time trying to talk people into liking this. it's a sensationalist claim, obviously people will dispute it.

"In one day, the average person breathes out around 500 litres of the greenhouse gas CO2 – which amounts to around 1kg in mass."

That carbon comes from animals and plants that took it from the atmosphere in the first place. It's the normal carbon cycle: we don't drink oil. Well, not the kind that's extracted from underground and so is out of the carbon cycle.

On the other hand, if the filter was disposed of appropriately, that carbon would be removed from the carbon cycle and the atmosphere would be freed of some CO2 as a consequence.

Modern agriculture uses quite a bit of fossil fuels and the land-use penalty is there as well. In that light your quip about us not drinking oil is quite disingenuous.

I suspect that the physical extra effort these students made during assembly of this car (or even increased mental activity coming up with the clickbaity filter addition) completely negates the lifetime benefit of the co2 removal.

Talk about bikeshedding. The clicks are probably worth it tho.

Depends with values so low how many km are needed before it breaks even with the co2 production emissions ...

With 1.4B personal vehicles on earth, pro tip: the future won't be clean even if they're battery powered

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