Anyone need a ride?

A pair of scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have come up with a concept for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline!

The scientists, Jeffrey Martin and William Kubic Jr. have titled their concept "Green Freedom", and here is how it would work. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel such as methanol, gasoline and jet fuel. The closed cycle - meaning equal amounts of carbon dioxide emitted and removed from the air would mean that cars, trucks and airplanes using the synthetic fuels would no longer contribute to global warming, according to the New York Times article.

I know, you're saying that there must be a catch, well sort of........no prototype has yet to be built, but the scientists say it is all based on existing technology. One major caveat to building a (CO2 to gasoline) factory is that it would require a great deal of energy. A nuclear power plant and the development of a new electrochemical process might be able to overcome that obstacle.

The Los Alamos proposal does not violate any laws of physics, and other scientists, like George A. Olah, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist at the University of Southern California, and Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at Columbia University, have independently suggested similar ideas. Dr. Martin said he and Dr. Kubic had worked out their concept in more detail than previous proposals.

What would be the cost of the project? About 5 billion.

The concept would be able to produce gasoline at a cost of $1.40 per gallon and it would be made economically viable at a cost of $4.60 to the consumer. Technology advances might be able to get that cost down to $3.40.