Using goal and sunlight, scientists at the National Energy Technology Laboratory have developed a process to turn carbon dioxide into fuel. The process, which uses gold nanoparticles, uses more CO2 than it emits, making it carbon negative, according to a Department of Energy blog post. The process can be powered by renewable energy. According to the study’s lead researcher, Douglas Kauffman, “demonstrating that renewable energy resources can efficiently power CO2 conversion is a game changer that will hopefully lead to the development of large-scale systems.”
According to the blog post, the process could develop into an industrial-scale way to reduce CO2 emissions. “[M]ost fossil fuel-powered CO2 conversion processes currently result in a net increase of CO2, which means they are ‘carbon positive’ and do not help mitigate CO2 emissions. If implemented on a commercial scale, NETL’s process has the potential to reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions, aiding efforts to fight climate change,” according to the post.
