Are We Chasing After Windmills? Barriers to Carbon Dioxide Utilization

The conversion of CO₂ into fuels and chemicals requires significant energy input to break C-O bonds and create C-C and C-H bonds. This review explores the energy and capital barriers to CO₂ utilization, using ethylene production as a case study by comparing CO₂ electroreduction with other carbon mitigation options, including carbon capture and sequestration. The world's energy and capital resources are limited-scarce, in the parlance of economics-and choosing to use them to implement one path to decarbonization displaces other options for decarbonization or other priorities. These opportunity costs are significant and should not be ignored. Instead of breaking the C-O bonds in CO₂ to produce chemicals and fuels, society should prioritize the higher CO₂ mitigation efficiencies of alternative approaches, such as carbon capture and sequestration, new process and catalyst technologies for key molecules, and capital-efficient hydrogen production.