<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>nhebb</author><text>&amp;gt; as usual, the PR is excessive&lt;p&gt;I think articles that over hype lab results make it to the top of HN because there is no downvote button and flagging them doesn&amp;#x27;t seem appropriate. I wish there was a &amp;quot;meh&amp;quot; option.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>&amp;quot;Nanotechnology&amp;quot; again. It&amp;#x27;s just surface chemistry, people. It&amp;#x27;s nice that they can do this in the lab, but as usual, the PR is excessive.  &amp;quot;The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete.&amp;quot;  At least get to pilot plant stage before issuing statements like that.&lt;p&gt;Especially since UC Berkeley announced a similar breakthrough last year.[1] Wikipedia points out that artificial photosynthesis was first achieved in 1912, and some of the same claims were made back then.  There are lots of artificial photosynthesis projects. One of the best was in 2011, the first &amp;quot;artificial leaf&amp;quot;[3]. It ran for 44 hours.&lt;p&gt;The usual questions apply. How efficient is this?  Does the catalyst get used up, or crud up with contaminants, and if so, how fast? What limits the life of the system?  What are the costs like?  (Excessive catalyst cost has been a problem.)
Is this better than all the other groups doing similar work?&lt;p&gt;Artificial photosynthesis may be useful someday, but this probably isn&amp;#x27;t the big breakthrough that makes it a commercial product. That may come, though.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;newscenter.lbl.gov&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;major-advance-in-artificial-photosynthesis&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;newscenter.lbl.gov&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;major-advance-in-artifi...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Artificial_photosynthesis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Artificial_photosynthesis&lt;/a&gt;
[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acs.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;acs&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;pressroom&amp;#x2F;newsreleases&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;march&amp;#x2F;debut-of-the-first-practical-artificial-leaf.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acs.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;acs&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;pressroom&amp;#x2F;newsreleases&amp;#x2F;20...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel</title><url>https://news.uic.edu/breakthrough-solar-cell-captures-co2-and-sunlight-produces-burnable-fuel</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>wongarsu</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;quot;The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete.&amp;quot; At least get to pilot plant stage before issuing statements like that.&lt;p&gt;They don&amp;#x27;t really say that they are cost comparable to gasoline, they just make the obvious statement that if something were as cheap as gasoline that would be a big deal.&lt;p&gt;I guess hyping these advances is supposed to make it easier to get funding for further research in the area. The sceptic in me expects them to hit the market right after the first fusion power plant comes online (another technology that is hyped for decades as &amp;quot;just around the corner&amp;quot;).</text><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>&amp;quot;Nanotechnology&amp;quot; again. It&amp;#x27;s just surface chemistry, people. It&amp;#x27;s nice that they can do this in the lab, but as usual, the PR is excessive.  &amp;quot;The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete.&amp;quot;  At least get to pilot plant stage before issuing statements like that.&lt;p&gt;Especially since UC Berkeley announced a similar breakthrough last year.[1] Wikipedia points out that artificial photosynthesis was first achieved in 1912, and some of the same claims were made back then.  There are lots of artificial photosynthesis projects. One of the best was in 2011, the first &amp;quot;artificial leaf&amp;quot;[3]. It ran for 44 hours.&lt;p&gt;The usual questions apply. How efficient is this?  Does the catalyst get used up, or crud up with contaminants, and if so, how fast? What limits the life of the system?  What are the costs like?  (Excessive catalyst cost has been a problem.)
Is this better than all the other groups doing similar work?&lt;p&gt;Artificial photosynthesis may be useful someday, but this probably isn&amp;#x27;t the big breakthrough that makes it a commercial product. That may come, though.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;newscenter.lbl.gov&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;major-advance-in-artificial-photosynthesis&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;newscenter.lbl.gov&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;major-advance-in-artifi...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Artificial_photosynthesis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Artificial_photosynthesis&lt;/a&gt;
[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acs.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;acs&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;pressroom&amp;#x2F;newsreleases&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;march&amp;#x2F;debut-of-the-first-practical-artificial-leaf.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acs.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;acs&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;pressroom&amp;#x2F;newsreleases&amp;#x2F;20...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Breakthrough solar cell captures CO2 and sunlight, produces burnable fuel</title><url>https://news.uic.edu/breakthrough-solar-cell-captures-co2-and-sunlight-produces-burnable-fuel</url></story>