Climate Change Can Be Stopped by Turning Air into Gasoline
The article kind of glosses over the fact that one of the inputs to the process is hydrogen.That really makes this whole process a way of converting energy stored in hydrogen to energy stored in hydrocarbons. This is pretty desirable - hydrocarbon fuels are much easier to work with, fit in with our existing transport - but not really a new source of energy.The problem with sequestering CO2 as hydrocarbons is that you need to put a whole load of energy (embodied in the hydrogen you're combining it with) into the ground and leave it there. Fortunately renewables (especially solar) are heading in the right direction. On a sunny day in an area with lots of solar panels, electricity is essentially free. We're still some way from having enough free energy available to be able to put large amounts of it back into the ground though.