Comment by aaroninsf
2 days ago
Related: my personal wistful thinking is,
AI -> safe deployable fusion -> power for desalination and exactly this sort of thing.
In particular I daydream about use of "free" power to perform carbon sequestration back into liquid hydrocarbon fuels for existing ICE etc. infrastructure...voila, no delay to retool civilization while getting down to the business of bringing carbon back under 400 ppm.
The was an article here a while back about the production of propane from water and CO2 (via a catalyst and electricity). I think "renewable fossil fuels" are the only way we can handle the fluctuating production of renewable energy and get the density of fuel we need for storage, especially mobile storage like fuel for cars & lorries.
> Related: my personal wistful thinking is,
> AI -> safe deployable fusion
This reminds me of the recent HN referred article on Cargo Cults
I interpreted that causality as AI leading to deployment of carbon-neutral energy, then when the AI bubble bursts, we’ve pushed carbon-neutral electricity sources off the learning curve cliff and it is available for cheap without the original consumers needing it. From that perspective, it could be any carbon neutral electricity (fusion, fission, enhanced geothermal, super-deep geothermal etc.). I could be misinterpreting the parent comment.