Another of those potential climate change solutions

As we’ve noted before it’s technically possible to solve climate change in a manner wholly different from the way it is being attempted. It is possible, as Porsche is showing, to make petrol from air and water. It only takes a little tweaking to thereby solve the whole flying thing by making jet fuel from the same process. One advantage of this is that we don’t have to rewire the country, ban ICE cars and everyone still gets to go to Torremolinos. We just put the newly sourced fuel into the same old infrastructure we’ve already got.

Now, whether this is economic is entirely another matter.

We’ve a third suggestion here:

Shell is exploring making natural gas from hydrogen to ship to countries around the world amid fears that surging demand in China will leave Europe short of supplies.

The FTSE 100 energy giant outlined plans to begin creating liquefied natural gas (LNG) as it warned that strong demand in China for imports had “come at Europe’s expense”.

Oh?

Shell’s plans would see it combine hydrogen, made using solar power, with carbon molecules captured from greenhouse gases in the air.

This is very much the same idea and point. It is possible to use renewables generated electricity to electrolyse water and thereby gain hydrogen. Combine that with CO2 from the atmosphere and it is then wholly and entirely possible to work up to any particular hydrocarbon desired. Anything from methane through LNG to petrol, jet fuel, axle grease and tarmacadam if desired. It is also, obviously enough, net zero to do so. We borrow that CO2 from the atmosphere for a bit and then return it. The advantage is, as before, that we are only putting a newly sourced fuel into current infrastructure rather than having to build an entirely new one. It also, very neatly, solves the battery problem - the hydrocarbons, we know how to store and transport those, they are the battery.

We come to the same problem as well. We know this is technically possible. We don’t know whether it’s economic.

Fortunately we also know how to find that out - the market. Stick the cost of the externality into market prices and leave be. That grand calculating machine that is the interaction of each of the 8 billion of us then chews through the numbers and out pops the answer. Many centuries of experience teaches that this method works better than the North London intelligentsia mouth breathing as they attempt to plan using their slide rules.

So, we should leave the market be to chew through those numbers for us. Perhaps manufacturing synthetic fuels and feeding them into the current world is the way to go. Perhaps it isn’t. But we’re only going to find out if people go ahead and try and then we’ll see. Without, obviously, people shrieking that as that’s not in the plan that cannot be allowed. Even though those with the plan will do exactly that.

Tim Worstall