How is it possible to safely use carbon monoxide as a fuel? Is there anything that will allow carbon monoxide to be used as a fuel? It is quite toxic, but has attractive properties otherwise (only produces CO2 with no water, also no smoke or soot). Aside from a permanent spark, or a pilot light, I can't see any way of doing this.

Is there some catalyst that will help the reaction? Apparently, platinum can be used as catalyst between hydrogen and air.
During WWII many cars were powered by a gasogene engine, which transformed wood or charcoal into a synthetic gas composed by $\ce{CO}$, $\ce{N2}$, $\ce{H2}$ and $\ce{CO2}$. Thus the use of $\ce{CO}$ (albeit not as a pure gas) as a fuel is not something new (the former use of piped coal gas for house heating and cooking has already been mentioned above). I am not sure however about how safe those gasogene engines were.