We are already able to do the conversion from solar light to electrical energy at better efficiency than the plants and sooner or later we should be able to reach similar efficiency with the plants at carbon dioxide reduction into hydrocarbons.
The conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons is precisely the only solution to the CO2 problem that cannot be questioned in any way, because it is the only solution about which it is known with certainty that it works, as anyone can see by just opening a window and looking outside.
The energy comes from sunlight. If you actually use plants, that's biofuels.
> The conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons is precisely the only solution to the CO2 problem that cannot be questioned in any way, because it is the only solution about which it is known with certainty that it works, as anyone can see by just opening a window and looking outside.
Anyone can also see that you can charge an electric car with solar panels and operate the entire country of France on nuclear, hydro and renewables without ever burning anything.
> Normally any carbon capture installation must be powered by solar or wind energy, simultaneously solving the problem of the energy storage.
Then you've made the economics even worse because your facility can only operate during periods of surplus generation, which everyone else will be trying to minimize by spinning down peaker plants, charging their electric cars and otherwise using competing storage technologies with lower costs.
And the fossil fuel plants are the ones you'd want to shut down during those times, which implies you'd also have to store the CO2 for later use, which requires tanks and compressors and more energy.
It's not really that surprising that this isn't currently cost effective and it's not obvious that it's the most cost effective area of research either.
But you might not. That kind of technology is highly questionable thermodynamically. You're going to burn coal for energy and then turn the CO2 back into fuel for somehow less energy? Good luck with that. Just leave the coal in the ground where you found it.
The most promising thing in that ballpark is biofuels, but they compete with food production for farmland. Which could plausibly work for aviation but isn't likely to scale to transportation in general, much less production of electricity.