The method discovered by the research team at the University of Wisconsin can be used to create clean energy, releasing nothing but protons and nitrogen gas as byproducts, neither of which pose a threat to the atmosphere. What's more, the metal used in the process can be recycled and reused, making the process efficient, green, and low-waste. If we can scale up this technology for widespread use in the future, it could be a hugely promising advance in the fight against climate change and the global push for the decarbonization of our largely coal- and oil-fuelled economies. 

"The world currently runs on a carbon fuel economy," Christian Wallen, one of the authors of the Nature Chemistry paper was quoted by SciTechDaily. "It's not a great economy because we burn hydrocarbons, which release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We don't have a way to close the loop for a true carbon cycle, where we could transform carbon dioxide back into a useful fuel."

A nitrogen economy could be the answer for a cleaner, greener, and more liveable world in the future.