http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/23/carbon-dioxide-fuel.html

 

Pretty nifty... with the application of titanium oxide these nanotubes can convert CO₂ into methane using sunlight as a power source. Of course, algae do a pretty good job of turning sunlight into fuel too, and they're a lot easier to make than carbon nanotubes

 

The process is obviously carbon neutral, although methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO₂. Hopefully it will get burned cleanly and completely.

Cool.

 

Is it a game-changer or just a promising sidebar?

I've got an idea!

 

We can get cars to run on methane.

Their exhaust will have water and carbon dioxide

Then we put these nanotubes in their exhaust pipes

And we connect the exhaust pipes back to the fuel intake!

 

Yay! No fuel required! That is what these nanotubes can do, right?

 

Oh wait... it has to be powered by sunlight...so basically such a configuration would be just a solar cell...

Yes, the nanotubes use solar power to convert CO₂ into methane. No perpetual motion machine to see here, sorry.

Ah, how upsetting...

 

Not that its not a perpetual motion machine, but how I missed the first few words of the article...

"Powered by sunlight..."

 

That's acutally a very good idea, there aren't really any good ways to convert CO2 into hydrocarbons...

 

Set up a couple factories for this processing, and you've got things going! Just use a nitrous oxide fridge to condense CO2 and then run it over these nanotubes... efficient? profitable? probably not, but maybe someday...