We are already able to do the conversion from solar light to electrical energy at better efficiency than the plants and sooner or later we should be able to reach similar efficiency with the plants at carbon dioxide reduction into hydrocarbons.
If someone will succeed to solve the difficulties of the direct electrolysis of CO2 or of carbonates, we may exceed the efficiency of the plants, which reduce CO2 indirectly, with hydrogen obtained by the photolysis of water.
The conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons is precisely the only solution to the CO2 problem that cannot be questioned in any way, because it is the only solution about which it is known with certainty that it works, as anyone can see by just opening a window and looking outside.
Using energy from fossil fuels for carbon capture is so obviously absurd that nobody could do such a silly thing.
Normally any carbon capture installation must be powered by solar or wind energy, simultaneously solving the problem of the energy storage.
The energy comes from sunlight. If you actually use plants, that's biofuels.
> The conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons is precisely the only solution to the CO2 problem that cannot be questioned in any way, because it is the only solution about which it is known with certainty that it works, as anyone can see by just opening a window and looking outside.
Anyone can also see that you can charge an electric car with solar panels and operate the entire country of France on nuclear, hydro and renewables without ever burning anything.
> Normally any carbon capture installation must be powered by solar or wind energy, simultaneously solving the problem of the energy storage.
Then you've made the economics even worse because your facility can only operate during periods of surplus generation, which everyone else will be trying to minimize by spinning down peaker plants, charging their electric cars and otherwise using competing storage technologies with lower costs.
And the fossil fuel plants are the ones you'd want to shut down during those times, which implies you'd also have to store the CO2 for later use, which requires tanks and compressors and more energy -- energy that comes out of the inefficient side of the system because you have to do that during the times you don't have surplus generation.
It's not really that surprising that this isn't currently cost effective and it's not obvious that it's the most cost effective area of research either.