Fuel from Air

Peak oil presents a liquid fuels problem.  Transportation depends heavily on oil and nothing is in place to take on the demand.  Every once in a while, a new technology hits the news.  Air Fuel Synthesis is a company with a process that reacts hydrogen with carbon dioxide to produce gasoline.

Now, it's probably helpful to have a process to produce fuel that doesn't depend on crude oil or biomass.  And it's nice to extract some carbon dioxide from the air.  But electrolyzing hydrogen from water involves a net energy loss.  The plan calls for renewable energy to do that, but we're better off using that power more directly.  They hope to produce a ton per day in two years and don't mention any energy return on energy invested.

There seems to be a never ending quest for a silver bullet to solve intractable problems.

Update (April 3, 2013):  Research at the University of Georgia is using a modified microorganism to directly produce biofuel from atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Update (April 8, 2014):  The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has demonstrated using carbon dioxide and hydrogen from seawater to produce hydrocarbon fuel.

Update (August 1, 2016):  A study published in Science describes using a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide which is easier to further convert into hydrocarbon fuels.