Holy Shit!

[Minimalist]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/artifici...-sunlight/

‘Artificial Leaf’ creates fuel from CO2 and sunlight

A solar cell breakthrough has the potential to render fossil fuels obsolete while at the same time reversing some of the damage such fuels have done to the atmosphere, new research suggests.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) created a catalyst that uses the sun’s energy to convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into burnable hydrocarbon fuel.

[Thumpalumpacus]

That could be interesting ...

[Minimalist]

The research received praise from Robert McCabe, a program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF and the U.S. Department of Energy funded the research.

So it seems, republicunts, that government funded research has a great deal of value after all!

[vorlon13]

LOL, I assume the process yields oxygen, so:

if the hydrocarbon output was pumped into appropriate geological strata deep in the earth, we would be taking carbon dioxide out of the air instead of being a net neutral on the process if those hydrocarbons were instead burned.

And of course, there is a 'Vorlon' twist lurking in this post . . .

[Minimalist]

Is it the concept of "pumping?"

[vorlon13]

no, the appropriate strata would be existing oil fields.

replacing the oil in the oil fields is a weird and wacky environmental remediation measure that will make environmentalists heads explode like popcorn.

[Jackalope]

no, the appropriate strata would be existing oil fields.

replacing the oil in the oil fields is a weird and wacky environmental remediation measure that will make environmentalists heads explode like popcorn.

...which makes this - ironically - something I suspect will be opposed by the more strident environmentalists, if it is even workable.

Burning hydrocarbons or - gasp - dumping them back in the ground?

[vorlon13]

But we would be RESTORING a part of our geological environment !!

[Angrboda]

Interesting idea if it could be made efficient enough. Not much info to go on in that article though.

[Jackalope]

But we would be RESTORING a part of our geological environment !!

That's the delicious irony of it.