Is it possible to use energy from renewable energy sources to break down CO2 and when needed, turn that back into another molecule? Or am I dumb?
And is it efficient?
In: 1
You can break the CO2 apart, but you need energy to do so. It would take more energy to break the molecules apart and store them than you would get back.
Hydrogen as fuel is promising, but it has the same problem. You need to break water apart to get pure hydrogen, spending energy to get the fuel. For this reason, hydrogen is called an “energy vector.” That means it can be used to store or transport energy, but never make more than was put in to obtain the hydrogen in the first place. Same idea with CO2. However, the bonds that bind carbon and oxygen in CO2 are stronger than the bonds that bind hydrogen to oxygen in water. You need more energy to break stronger bonds, so it would not be efficient to do this over using hydrogen.
You are never dumb for asking an honest and complex question. 🙂
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