I'm also curious to hear what any ChemE's might have to say. The
process requires both lots of water and plenty of clean electricity,
which might make it interesting[0] for my local hydro.
The Subject: line is already fairly optimistic: what I skimmed of the
Cell paper only discusses isolating and concentrating CO2 from the
atmosphere; generating synfuels from that no-chain-count feedstock is
a separate[1] problem.
If I have my signs right, the calciner is the endothermic stage; I
was amused by the introductory line:
In the 1960's, capture of CO2 from air was considered as a
feedstock for producton of hydrocarbon fuels using mobile nuclear
power plants
-Dave
[0] under the very large assumption that those producing the CO2
would be both willing and able to pay those extracting it?
[1] one which was industrialised (at least for higher chain count
precursors, eg. from coal) by the middle of last century, cf Bergius
and Fischer-Tropsch.
