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pl-94 | 4 years ago

The purpose of making fuel out of thin air is to reduce the burden on logistics (how to transfer large amount of fuel on isolated locations?).

However, their process obviously require a lot of energy (they did not provide any number but everyone would do it if it were cheap). So how do you transfer this energy in isolated areas? The purpose of fuel is its high power capacity, making it easy to transport.

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7952|4 years ago

You generate it locally, use an existing grid connection, or build a new grid connection. The advantage of this is flexibility. You can use spare capacity in one to fill a gap in the other. This already happens with generators. Why not the other way around?

For example, imagine a base in the desert. You have an existing grid connection, and fuel supply. Neither can be 100% reliable. So you build a solar array, manufacture synthetic fuel, and have generators for emergency power which can be powered from stored synthetic fuel. You already need power and fuel anyway. Allowing interchange between the two just adds flexibility.