Reclaiming carbon as fuel
No matter where you stand on the Global warming debates, we can all agree that pumping pollution into the atmosphere is not a good thing. If the Global warming advocates are right, then we will have major catastrophic weather in out future. But even if they are wrong, we still have smog and pollution buildup in our air and water. Which can have all kinds of nasty side effects.
So anything that reduces buildup of pollutants is a good thing. And if you can get a tangible economic benefit from that reduction, you are much more likely to have people deploy and use it. And that is what scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have come up with. Basically they have created a system that uses solar energy to convert CO2 into fuels such as methanol or gasoline.
Right now it is still pretty expensive, but with the cost of fuel rising all the time, it is getting more economically feasible. Plus the scientists expect to be able to reduce the cost as they improve the process.
Check out the article at Wired: Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2
A very nice idea – but they still have very much to do until it will really work!
Until then we should use some other ways to protect our world
