Comment by zahlman
3 days ago
> It is better than getting fertiliser from fossil fuels, but it is still not great.
Please explain how there is anything even remotely bad about it.
3 days ago
> It is better than getting fertiliser from fossil fuels, but it is still not great.
Please explain how there is anything even remotely bad about it.
Its horrendously inefficient...and inefficiency is usually bad for the environment. For example, the solar PV when sited in Minnesota is so inefficient just making the electricity from natural gas would produce less CO2 per watt. So there is that, and that's before you look at if all the equipment you use to build the plant was better used elsewhere. And then you could put the solar PV somewhere where it would actually been better than just burning natural gas for electricity.
("Reducing methane is the fastest strategy available to reduce warming" > [1] "Production of hydrogen and carbon nanotubes from methane using a multi-pass floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition reactor with process gas recycling" (2025)zahlman
2 days ago
hunterpayne
2 days ago
> For example, the solar PV when sited in Minnesota is so inefficient just making the electricity from natural gas would produce less CO2 per watt.
How does electricity from solar PV ever make any CO2 whatsoever under any circumstances (never mind, somehow more than natural gas)?
Because the PV panel itself has to be manufactured. And under ideal conditions, the amount of power needed to make the panel is about 5 years of what the panel produces. Most of the power goes to purify the poli-silica that makes the bulk of the panel itself. If the PV panel is sited somewhere with less than 25% of the ideal amount of sun, then its manufacture makes more CO2 than the power it will replace on the grid. Minnesota is uniquely bad for site siting. Its at a low elevation with lots of cloud coverage and its far to the north of where the breakeven line for solar PV.
PS Did you think solar PV was made from unicorns or something? Making stuff requires power, unless you are making that power from hydro or nuclear, that's going to make a lot of CO2.
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