The CO2-to-hydrocarbon industry is, almost under the radar, and certainly beneath the notice of our news editors, proliferating/flowering in Europe, especially Germany.
Here is info from yet another company, Sunfire, which looks like it's been acquired by the multinational Bilfinger SE, formerly AG:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilfinger.
Note that Bilfinger's CEO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Koch;
is not, apparently, related to the Koch brothers.
We're researching Sunfire in more detail. We think they might have appeared previously in our CoalTL posts concerning CO2 utilization tech under another name.
Anyway, Sunfire has updated the Sabatier CO2-to-Methane process, and refined other technology like that about which we've reported, wherein CO2 can also be used and consumed in the synthesis of liquid hydrocarbon fuels of various sorts.
The "solar energy" is utilized primarily for hydrogen extraction from H2O, which their literature specifies to be otherwise un-useable seawater, as in some of our CoalTL reports. Hydrogen makes the CO2 conversion feasible and practical - Bilfinger's literature goes into some detail about how they extract heat, as NASA does, from the CO2-to-Methane Sabatier reaction, and use that heat to drive other components of the overall process.
Attached is one of their info sheets: "FUELS FROM SOLAR ENERGY, CO2 AND WATER".
We'll build them into a CoalTL report as circumstances allow. Right now, we're dealing with no water (frozen city pipes) and, maybe, no propane - which means our own pipes will soon be frozen. What a country.