News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at a stroke.

Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by peter_d_sherman on Monday November 05, 2018 @10:48PM (#18388188)
Excerpt: "NASA had offered a quarter-million-dollar prize to the first research team that could figure out how to extract oxygen from the moon’s surface, a precondition for establishing lunar bases. Sadoway proposed using an electrolytic cell—which produces an electric current to break down compounds—to extract oxygen from lunar rocks. The by-product was molten metal, a realization that led him to explore the possibility of using a similar approach to process metals back on Earth."

Two for the price of one! (Well, potential solutions to problems that is! One, how to generate oxygen on other planets, and two, how to smelt metals on this one while generating less carbon emissions. Well played!)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by sveme on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @03:28AM (#18389284)
Interestingly, this is exactly the process used in Andy Weir's new novel Artemis and makes oxygen the least of the problems of the moon city that the novel is named after.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by NickBusey on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @01:35PM (#18393657)
I highly recommend the audio book version read by Rosario Dawson.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by wavesounds on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @01:04AM (#18388763)
Another good example of how investing in NASA helps our economy by facilitating the discovery of new technology.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by beefield on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @01:30AM (#18388850)
Government intervention. Not good. Much better would be letting free markets to allocate more resources to figure out how to get people clicking more ads and development of cryptocurrencies.

(This was sarcasm.)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by SmellyGeekBoy on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @06:03AM (#18389941)
While I generally agree, the free market did give us the likes of Tesla and SpaceX. The optimal strategy is to allow both.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by CPLX on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @06:22AM (#18390016)
The amount of government subsidies to both those companies has been staggering. Neither of those are free market stories.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by Cthulhu_ on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @07:01AM (#18390182)
And it took nearly 50 years before a company dared to get into that market.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by pythonaut_16 on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @09:45AM (#18391391)
Has the government "subsidized" SpaceX? AFAIK the government has been a consistent customer of SpaceX and they've leased facilities from NASA but it seems that overall they aren't being subsidized but rather patronized.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by brohee on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @06:15PM (#18395735)
You are aware than the government pays SpaceX more than market price right? The difference is itemized as "additional checks", but it's subsidies in anything but name.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by gene-h on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @12:34AM (#18388640)
It's not just metals you can smelt, you can also smelt silicon from rocks. It ends up in a melt of iron and silicon, but one could potentially separate out the silicon and use it to make solar cells.[0] Which can then be used to power more electrolysis units to make more solar cells. [0]https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/200501...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by Heag3aec on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @06:39AM (#18390084)
And paperclips.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at ... by taneq on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @07:15AM (#18390290)
Well everything gets turned into paperclips eventually...
[ Parent | on HN ]