Engineering360: "Catalyst for Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Gasoline-range Hydrocarbons"

This is pure genius! Way to go to the researchers that got it this far!

Now we just need cheap hydrogen, and the races are on!

I take it the other 22 per cent is CO and CH2, at least before the CO, especially, starts messing with the 78 per cent of long chain hydrocarbon products. Then there are all the questions of blend and what one must do to his Cadillac to get it all to work. Yes, away we go, with our photons bashing H2O apart for the hydrogen or split cell nickel-something electrolytic reactors, or whatever the ghee-whiz of the moment is.

Hey if the new stuff works at some point, it makes sense to do some of it that way, as long as the final product (gasoline, etc.) does not cost $20/gallon compared to what we are paying right now.

Granted, it is easier to start with coal and make gasoline (water shift gas reaction, etc.) than to get hydrogen, and reduce carbon dioxide. It is even easier to get gasoline from growing algae. Things like this will continue to be researched until they get it down pat.

There is the systems engineering notion (OK, ecosystem, of the Odum brothers variety) that for every molecule of thermal enhancement gas added to the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuel, there is a net thermal gas enhancement greater than 1.0 due to the consequential release into the atmosphere of enhancement gases from non-anthropogenic (natural) sources that may not have been otherwise released absent the human-induced biosphere temperature increase.

Back end processes (e. g., recycling CO2 into gasoline) and even carbon sequestration in the context of all anthropogenic gases dumped into the atmosphere from mined resources are a non-starter, especially in the face of the >1.0 aspect. So, what we really have in the present and similar chemical exercises is a quaint academic endeavor that negligibly slows our decent into Hell and distracts us from all hands on deck for front end processes that conducted as a Manhattan Project would still confront the Earth with many decades (OK, centuries) before the flywheel of global warming starts to slow down. Meanwhile, we hunker down and begin our design of the Brave New World hot house of Earth II...unless, of course, a nuclear winter dramatically alters the direction toward an even more Hollywood thriller dystopia version of Earth II.

Hey this planet only has to last until X.

You define X, I am listening.

I think a fraction of a degree here or there might make things more pleasant, especially in some places. If you live in a Muskeg area, not so much.

I suspect human activities like WWII might have made a dent in the mean global temp, but where is the data?