Diesel Out of Thin Air

Making diesel out of thin air sounds like something from science fiction. But small companies in Germany and Canada are doing precisely this - capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) and finding ways to sell it. The Canadian company Carbon Engineering has just built a pilot plant to suck one to two tons of carbon dioxide from the air daily, turning it into 500 liters of diesel. The process requires electricity, but if the start-ups use renewable electricity they can produce diesel that is carbon neutral. In other words, burning it in your car only returns to the atmosphere the CO2 removed in the first place.

The concentration of CO2 in the air reached 400 parts per million in 2012-2013 - the highest since scientific measurements began. And the year July 2014-June 2015 was the warmest on record, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This technology using new innovations of modern science as well as some basic chemistry has the potential to recycle fossil fuels. This recycling can be used to halt the process of pumping new fuel from the Earth and putting more CO2 into the atmosphere.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34064072