This sounds really fishy to this old engineer, but I’m burdened with those old, crusty laws of thermodynamics that were formulated before the days of quantum physics and nanotechnology. Still, the prospect of oxidizing CH4 to form CO2 and H20 to release energy and then taking “relatively little energy” to convert CO2 to CH4 sounds more like a perpetual motion machine than an economically viable process.
As an old engineer myself (ChemE), I must agree.
But this is a new age! The laws of thermodynamics, like the Constitution, are full of negative restrictions. We can just hopey-changey them to something else. ;D
The NappyOne
You’re still ahead of me - everything I know about hydrocarbons I learned from watching McGyver. :-)