...AND CHEAPER...:

"We have developed a solar technology that is able to produce liquid fuels using just two ingredients: solar energy and ambient air," says Aldo Steinfeld, a renewable energy expert at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. "These hydrocarbon fuels release only as much carbon dioxide during combustion as was previously extracted from the air."

It may seem like alchemy, but the solar refinery Steinfeld has helped build in Móstoles, on the outskirts of Madrid, follows some straightforward chemistry. An array of mirrors called a heliostat tracks the sun, boosting the sunlight's intensity by a factor of 2,500 while reflecting it onto a 50-foot-high tower.

This dazzling beam of light heats a reactor with a core made of cerium oxide, an inexpensive compound often used to polish glass. At 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, oxygen is liberated from the cerium and removed, after which water and carbon dioxide captured from the air are injected into the reactor. As the reactor cools, the reduced cerium claws back oxygen molecules from the added material, leaving a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide called syngas. This is funneled into a second reactor, where the syngas is converted into kerosene molecules. In June 2019, the Móstoles refinery announced its first trickle of fuel.

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