[verum ago]

The technology, presented to a London engineering conference this week, removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide. Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier.

The company, Air Fuel Syndication, then uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.

The above process is seriously energy-intensive. From the first Law of Thermodynamics they're obviously not going to get the same energy out of the 'petrol' that they put into making it (duh), but reading the above I'm wondering just how bad the gap between energy-in and energy-out is for this. Might not even be the same order of magnitude.

I love how they put "electrolysing" in quotes like it's a made up term.

[OneWingedShark]

The above process is seriously energy-intensive. From the first Law of Thermodynamics they're obviously not going to get the same energy out of the 'petrol' that they put into making it (duh), but reading the above I'm wondering just how bad the gap between energy-in and energy-out is for this. Might not even be the same order of magnitude.
I love how they put "electrolysing" in quotes like it's a made up term.

True; but it only takes a little over one volt to do electrolysis w/ water (that could easily be produced by solar) -- I don't know what the energy cost for sodium hydroxide electrolysis is though.

Even so, it would make more sense to partner with a brewery, as fermentation produces carbon-dioxide as a waste-product (and IIRC it's fairly high purity).