This is about developing metal-organic materials that absorb CO2 under one set of conditions and release it under a different set of conditions. The whole goal here is to generate a stream of 100% pure CO2 starting with ~400 ppm CO2 - meaning if you want 1 liter of pure CO2 at room temperature and pressure, you need to process a minimum of 2500 liters of air - and likely quite a bit more as you are not going to be 100% efficient.
Making this work is all about minimizing the energy (and thus economic) cost of this first step. Then you need to reduce (add hydrogen and remove oxygen) the CO2 and start building other products - methanol, long-chain hydrocarbons, etc. (that's shipping and jet/rocket fuel, respectively). But why stop there? If you want long-term stable materials, converting the CO2 into carbon fiber is a good option - more sci-fi is a diamond endpoint, which takes a lot of energy, but has many uses.
This will have minimal effect on atmospheric CO2 unless fossil fuel extraction and combustion is eliminated from the energy mix - but it does point to how human civilization can do material and fuel production without having to mine carbon from the earth or cut down forests. In the long run, this is the only plausible option.
Making this work is all about minimizing the energy (and thus economic) cost of this first step. Then you need to reduce (add hydrogen and remove oxygen) the CO2 and start building other products - methanol, long-chain hydrocarbons, etc. (that's shipping and jet/rocket fuel, respectively). But why stop there? If you want long-term stable materials, converting the CO2 into carbon fiber is a good option - more sci-fi is a diamond endpoint, which takes a lot of energy, but has many uses.
This will have minimal effect on atmospheric CO2 unless fossil fuel extraction and combustion is eliminated from the energy mix - but it does point to how human civilization can do material and fuel production without having to mine carbon from the earth or cut down forests. In the long run, this is the only plausible option.