this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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In addition to the other comments about how it's still not bad for efficiency, I'd like to point out the potential political and environmental benefits if we're still using oil anyway. Oil drilling has a huge negative impact on the environment. Oil spills, pipeline leaks, and the extraction itself can devastate ecosystems. I understand that electronic components in general are bad to produce, but this may allow for minimizing at least one avenue of environmental damage and exploitation. Additionally, oil is a huge part of international politics. Not needing to rely on oil rich nations would relieve some complications regarding international affairs. I don't know what scaling this looks like, but even if it had a worse conversion rate, it's still of interest for those reasons. Of course, all of that supposing we cannot switch to an entirely oil free society in the interim.
I do wonder how the removal of water and carbon dioxide from the air will affect local areas though. I imagine more research needs to be done on that.
You're not generally going to have a problem with CO~2~ removal locally. We're making enough of it that the trees won't die.
Water vapour, on the other hand ... that could be an environmental stressor depending on siting. Still, unless installing at scale, output of a gallon a day doesn't seem like it's going to do much to the local environment.
Yeah, I was figuring similarly, but still. I've seen enough "harmless" "local" environmental changes spiral to know that at least some thought is warranted about it. I absolutely did not mean to suggest it would be harmful, just that I don't know enough about it and would hope that somebody knowledgeable looks into it before they recommend scaling.
I mean, removing CO2 from the air is not a bad thing at this stage of global warming. It shouldn't harm any ecosystem short of like... somehow building gigawatt factories in the middle of the jungle, which would be its own environmental disaster. Removing water .... ehh, would just have to locate a big plant somewhere that isn't struggling for moisture.
Yeah, I was figuring similarly, but still. I've seen enough "harmless" "local" environmental changes spiral to know that at least some thought is warranted about it. I absolutely did not mean to suggest it would be harmful, just that I don't know enough about it and would hope that somebody knowledgeable looks into it before they recommend scaling.
Oh absolutely. I would never feel comfortable about any such projects unless several and different scientific institutions signed off on it being low to zero (or hopefully positive) impact.