Effective Use of Renewable Electricity for Making Renewable Fuels and Chemicals

If the electrochemical upgrading of CO2 is directed at products with the market sizes and environmental footprints of fuels then even very inexpensive, renewable electricity may not be sufficient to permit economic operation. If instead, the upgrading is directed at higher value products, then the size of the markets will likely be too small to offer a significant environmental benefit. An alternative approach would be to use the renewable electricity to ameliorate environmental burdens other than CO2, for example, wet or solid wastes that would otherwise be disposed in a landfill. In all cases there are interesting opportunities to pursue and deploy research on heterogeneous catalysis.