Richard P. Feynman stated, "Nature is not classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you better make it quantum mechanical."

It appears difficult to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. For civilization to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C, vast swaths of society—from transportation to food production—must undergo significant change. Quantum simulation may hold the key to reducing industrial carbon emissions, which is a particularly difficult challenge.

Australia Natural Gas Market has generated a lot of buzz in the technology sector, and for good reason. Quantum computers use qubits, which can be thought of as both a one and a zero at the same time, in place of binary digits (bits, the familiar ones and zeroes) in their calculations. Quantum computers are particularly well-suited to simulating molecules because of, well, physics.
Quantum simulations can assist in lowering industrial sector CO2 emissions. Molecular simulations will be crucial in lowering industrial sector CO2 emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that industrial CO2 emissions will reach 8.4 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2020 and will need to decrease to 0.7 Gt by 2050 in order to achieve net-zero emissions. The modern area will be the last to lessen its discharges fundamentally in light of the fact that the synthetic substances and cycles utilized are too carbon-concentrated to consider extensive outflow decrease inside the following couple of years.

Take, for instance, ammonia, a common fertilizer component. The Haber-Bosch process, which turns nitrogen into ammonia, requires a significant amount of energy and uses anywhere from 3% to 5% of the world's natural gas. In contrast, some microorganisms are very good at converting nitrogen into ammonia. Scientists are unsure of how to replicate this natural process because it is currently too difficult to simulate for the world's fastest supercomputers. Within hours, a quantum computer with more than a million qubits could mimic natural ammonia production.

A lot of hydrogen are likewise utilized in smelling salts creation. According to data from GlobalData, more than half of the available hydrogen is used to make ammonia. The majority of the hydrogen is produced through a process known as reforming, which is largely dependent on the use of natural gas.

Purported green hydrogen has a much lower carbon impression yet makes up just a small portion of hydrogen supply. Conducting electrolysis, in which an electric current is passed through water to separate its molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, is the process by which it is produced. The current electrolysis processes are too energy-intensive to be used on a large scale at a cost-effective rate.

The electrolysis process can be simulated with the aid of quantum computers. Indeed, IonQ successfully simulated a water molecule on one of its quantum devices in 2019 and collaborated with physicists from Leiden University to accomplish this in 2020.
Carbon catch: a driver for lowering greenhouse gas emissions?
In the net-zero path, hydrogen and carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS) are two crucial technologies that must develop rapidly. By 2050, the IEA projects that hydrogen and CCUS technologies will account for 50% of the emission reductions in heavy industry.

With respect to CCUS, no modest and promptly accessible impetuses for CO2 decrease exist, as most procedures include valuable metals or costly cycles. Jeremy O'Brien of PsiQuantum is of the opinion that quantum computers may open the door to the discovery of a fresh catalyst for carbon capture, ushering in a new era of removing carbon directly from the air and incorporating it into products like metals, plastics, and concrete.

All of this sounds great, but when could we begin to break ground like this? One million qubit computers will be available by 2030, according to IBM and Google, two quantum frontrunners. This ought to be just in time given that industrial carbon emissions need to decrease by 20% by then.