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Isn't the point that this process can be completed with the components in the air and the energy from the sun? At ~15% efficiency we're losing 85% of the potential energy from the sun, although we were previously capturing 0% of it. It should take an insignificant amount of input energy to begin the process, and then be a net energy positive for us.

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manufacture and assembly of components, and life-time & maintenance of parts should provide a 'break-even' formula for energy in vs. energy out. As long as building the machine doesn't cost more energy than it produces over X time period, you're right, the only inputs are sun and air, of which we have an practically unlimited supply.

Happy to be corrected, just commenting for the sake of discussion. This is how I understand the 'efficiency' of such experimental energy to be determined.

It would also take up a massive amount of land and cover it with solar mirrors, likely causing local ecological damage. And you need roads & infrastructure to support construction and maintenance, and to move the product out. And houses for the workers, and places for them to shop, and and and....

You still have to build and maintain power plants for extracting energy from other sources (coal, hydro, etc), which have huge additional costs.

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