Harvesting electricity from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide

Bert Hamelers, Ph.D., and colleagues explain that electric power-generating stations worldwide release about 12 billion tons of CO₂ annually from combustion of coal, oil and natural gas. Home and commercial heating produces another 11 billion tons. Smokestack gas from a typical coal-fired plant contains about 10 percent CO₂, which not only goes to waste, but is a key contributor to global warming. Hamelers' team sought a way to change that trash into a treasure.

They describe technology that would react the CO₂ with water or other liquids and, with further processing, produce a flow of electrons that make up electric current. It could produce about 1,570 billion kilowatts of additional electricity annually if used to harvest CO₂ from power plants, industry and residences. That's about 400 times the annual electrical output of the Hoover Dam. Like that dam and other hydroelectric power facilities, that massive additional amount of electricity would be produced without adding more CO₂ to the atmosphere, Hamelers pointed out.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the European Regional Development Fund, the Province of Fryslân, the City of Leeuwarden, the EZ/Kompas program of the "Samenwerkingsverband Noord-Nederland" and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme.