Maybe this could make coal-to-liquid more efficient? My understanding of the process is that it takes energy (in the form of heat) and CO2. Maybe this method could do the job using less energy?
Ultimately I think the goal of this research was to make it cheaper to reduce CO2 emissions, however it may be useful in other applications.
Apart from recovering and recycling waste CO2, another angle to this process (if it is efficient enough) is that it could be another effective way to store and transport electric power. As methane, it transports nicely.