The need for cold CO2 emissions – and why it’s already working out

The yield of thermal motors has improved greatly, going above 50% recently with 53% in a Chinese-made diesel and 56% in a Toyota model. This is certainly even overtaken now.

The fact is that what matters for climate change is the heat of the CO2 emitted. To take an example, when permafrost defreezes, it emits some CO2, but it’s cold CO2, so when that CO2 is absorbed by photosynthesis from the trees around there is a “double whammy” related to the coldness of that CO2 and to the endothermy of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is endothermic, which means that absorption of CO2 by plants also absorbs heat. As Nature noted, carbon AND heat. Carbon and heat are not the same thing !

I don’t understand the value of making 3D models or simply computer simulations, as if we were stronger than nature and able to modelize it perfectly. But perhaps injecting observed results from the ground into computer models can help people understand better.

So, colder CO2 from better yield thermal motors (above 50% in particular) also has somehow the same effect and coldens a bit the weather thanks to that “double whammy”. For the first time since long ago, we have seen an improvement in ice shield cover in the Arctic and very late snows in the Alps, including yesterday at 1500 meters of altitude in the Hautes Alpes.

This comes from the recent reversal in the market for electric vehicles, in particular after Germany’s decision to end all subsidies for electric cars. People are preferring hybrid vehicles which absorb particularly well the heat to feed the electric motors, while releasing colder CO2. LPG motors also have an interest because it’s gas that would be flared in refineries otherwise.

It’s the first time that we reach these good yields in thermal motors so it’s a quite new phenomenon, we’ve all been surprised by the colds in Europe. It’s nevertheless not yet a global trend because it’s related to new motor technologies being installed by markets very progressively, so it’s not in contradiction with the disappearance of the last glacier of Venezuela for instance.

AI by the way understands perfectly what’s at stake. I did the experiment by asking Copilot to draw it after reminding it of the definition of cold CO2 and that photosynthesis is endothermic. I got this illustration in return :