Researchers turn sunlight and CO2 into living biomass

Comments

• Sibbo@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I get the tree jokes, but I think the idea here is that the output is in an easily-processsble form such that you just pipe it into a bioreactor or refinery and make ethanol or some fossil-fuel replacement.

  And I guess these could be deployed on the ocean?

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  • Hirom@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Why produce ethanol?

    Producing and burning ethanol in internal combustion engines is more polluting, less efficient than using electric vehicles. So this can’t be it.

    Producing and burning ethanol for heat is more polluting, less efficient than heat pumps or solar thermal energy. So that’s not it either.

    The article mention chemical industry and:

    [..] building blocks for products ranging from fertilizers to plastics

    This leaves fertilizers and plastics. So this would have to compete with other ways to produce fertilizers, plastic and plastic alternatives (cardboard packaging, wood, glass…)

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    • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I didn’t think deeply about this. At least airplanes are still most efficient with kerosine-like fuel. But making plastics would be super important, because it’s such a powerful material.

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  • harambe69@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    We already had that. It’s called algae.

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• eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Trees: “holy shit you guys catch on slow”

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• eclipse7@feddit.nu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Researchers discover trees? ;D

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  • Bogus007@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I have the impression that since pretty much 20 years or even more, the number of published papers, where scientist repeated old theories or hypothesis and concluded the same, skyrocketed. This may not be in every field the case, but in some fields like ecology there is a certain tendency. Just recently a team published with large excitement a paper which showed that trees communicate via volatile organic compounds (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/04/993430007/trees-talk-to-each-other-mother-tree-ecologist-hears-lessons-for-people-too). Well, studies, which showed the same, were already done in the 80‘s.

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    • essell@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This often represents an issue in the reporting not the science.

      A new study which explores the details of those volatile organic compounds might be reported the same as a less robust, detailed or specific study from the 80s because it has to make a good headline now, just like it did back then.

      There’s also the need to keep updating research, to replicate old studies to prove the evidence still counts, especially in the field of ecology since so many are inclined to dismiss the science in that field which could literally kill us all.

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  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They clearly don’t get outside much

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