> The New Shepard uses a rocket engine, called Blue Engine 3, that runs on fuel combining liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. When these elements react with each other, they generate a tremendous amount of heat and the propulsive force to get the rocket off the ground.
> Since there's no carbon contained in the fuel, no carbon dioxide is emitted during the launch or into the atmosphere, Eloise Marais, an air pollution researcher at the University College London, told USA TODAY via email.
> Darin Toohey, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, agreed, telling Live Science that the main emissions from Bezos' rocket would be "water and some minor combustion products, and virtually no CO2."
> no carbon dioxide is emitted during the launch or into the atmosphere
It takes a lot of energy to capture that hydrogen and oxygen beforehand. The same energy that the rocket releases, plus losses due to process inefficiencies.
Maybe they take pains to use only renewables. If not, they likely emitted plenty of CO2 in advance of the launch.
It’s worth noting and celebrating when we can do something like power a rocket without having carbon emissions intrinsic to that process.
It’s the same argument against electric cars - “oh, well the electricity might be made in a coal plant!” Sure, but we know how to solve _that_ problem, it’s this _other_ one we’ve been trying to figure out.
It's possible to make zero carbon electrofuels. The question is a matter of excess cost and scalability. Right now the price of "clean hydrogen" is eight times the price of dirty hydrogen. [1]
That's a rather exorbitant difference. Maybe in the future, the difference will be more manageable and scalable. As it stands now, there's a lot of work to do.
Note, this is super important to solve because battery power doesn't work for heavy things, such as large aircraft, shipping vessels, etc.
That's right, and so does generating the electricity to charge the battery. Which is why I don't have stories written about how no CO2 is released as I use my computer from its charged battery. It'd be fair to scorn me if I did.
BTW, I think it's great that this rocket emits almost nothing but steam at runtime.
