Physics Solves Problems - Casey Handmer PhD

[@musicman53]

This is a brilliant lecture !!

[@danielmacdougall2697]

except this guy has a dubious employment history - hyperloop LOL - see thunderf00t - hyperloop busted - casey features as an elon stan - quite hilarious imho

[@ldm3027]

this is the dumbest scheme imaginable - the conversion efficiency from solar PV to methane (not natural gas) is ~ 25% and that is before the methane is burnt. so the overall process efficiency is just Terrable. It relies on subsidy that will not scale with the tech, which is a fatal flaw. overall a waste of money and effort

[@johntobiayorinde9632]

Why worry about the efficiency of conversion from an unlimited resource?

[@Ergzay]

Sure, but most uses of energy are continuous, but solar production is not, so you need to buffer the energy. That means batteries, hydrogen storage, hydrocarbon storage, pumped energy storage, or something else. All of those cost money. Further you need industrial processes to consume the stored energy. Storage mechanisms that turn it directly back into electricity are much better in that regard. But there's also a huge petrochemical industry that depends on fossil fuels, rebuilding that all to use electrical energy instead of hydrocarbon energy is really expensive, and you still need a chemical feed stock for those raw elements.