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Elemental hydrogen has this problem: it is hard to store. You need low temperatures, high pressure, and corrosion resistant containers. But there is one weird trick: if you bind hydrogen to carbon atoms, then you get best of both worlds. The fuel remains energetic and yet is relatively unreactive outside of combustion and is easy to store. Perfect for aviation.



I wonder what efficiencies look like for making hydrocarbons from atmospheric CO2 and water.


Not great, not terrible [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...]

Not price competitive with fossil fuels, but then not much is - hard to beat ‘mega joules for free*’ as it were.


Not disagreeing but just reminding.

It’s hard to compete with “let everyone else in the world pay for the true cost of this energy”.

That’s what makes fossil affordable and why we need carbon taxes right this second.


Not wonderful, since atmospheric CO2 is so dilute. You need either a hefty carbon tax or a ban on oil extraction to make the economics work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

Our current spike in natural gas and oil prices is something of a dry run for what carbon taxes would look like. So far it doesn't seem like the approval ratings of the governing party can survive it.


Isn't that basically what trees do? Solar-powered, too!


H2 is not hard to store in liquified form, LH2. You just need good insulation. Earth is excellent insulation.

For aviation, sticking on a carbon that outweighs your hydrogens by almost 8x gives up a huge efficiency advantage. The efficiency advantage overcomes inconvenience of handling cryogenic LH2. My bet is the tanks will be nacelles slung under the wings alongside the engines.




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