I've been reading Casey's blog post for a few years now, and while he is a very optimistic person when it comes to the possibilities of energy technology, nothing he says here stands out to me as unreasonable.
His basic thesis is: Solar PV energy cost is declining rapidly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, primarily due to the scaling effects of making more of it. At a certain point, energy from solar will become so cheap it will start making financial sense to just make hydrocarbon fuels directly from air and water instead of digging it up from the ground.
He also spends a few paragraphs making hand-wavey statements about all the other things that might be done, like refining metals and recycling goods by turning them into a plasma and sorting the atoms.
But as far as making hydrocarbon fuel directly from solar pv power, as long as the trend of decreasing cost holds true for long enough, then it must eventually become economically feasible.
I really like this idea because it doesn't require that dozens of the worlds largest employers, oil companies, will just suddenly disappear in the next decade or two. That these companies can transition to oil and gas production, simply downstream of solar pv instead of a hole in the ground, is very appealing. and feels really possible.
His basic thesis is: Solar PV energy cost is declining rapidly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, primarily due to the scaling effects of making more of it. At a certain point, energy from solar will become so cheap it will start making financial sense to just make hydrocarbon fuels directly from air and water instead of digging it up from the ground.
He also spends a few paragraphs making hand-wavey statements about all the other things that might be done, like refining metals and recycling goods by turning them into a plasma and sorting the atoms.
But as far as making hydrocarbon fuel directly from solar pv power, as long as the trend of decreasing cost holds true for long enough, then it must eventually become economically feasible.
I really like this idea because it doesn't require that dozens of the worlds largest employers, oil companies, will just suddenly disappear in the next decade or two. That these companies can transition to oil and gas production, simply downstream of solar pv instead of a hole in the ground, is very appealing. and feels really possible.