this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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Non renewable solar energy unfortunately.
Renewable fuels exist and are used today, but the efficiency and pollution aspects still apply.
If you're making your diesel from CO2 pulled from the air, pollution aspects don't really apply (at least, CO2 emission issues don't, there's still NOx, but that's what cat piss is for).
Problem is, converting atmospheric CO2 back into fuel makes the efficiency issue drastically worse. Maybe with enough solar panels and windmills, and use the Fischer–Tropsch process with the excess energy that the grid isn't consuming.
Of course, that would be for mobile fuel, if solar plants were going to do anything like that for later use generating electricity during peaks, making diesel is dumb; you'd want to use hydrogen or ammonia for in-place energy storage.
I was thinking about fuels like HVO. They work well, but have their own ecological implications.
Ah. I'm generally skeptical of any plant-based 'green fuel' because they generally take up agricultural capacity that would otherwise be producing food