Chicago Electricity-driven CO2 and Hydrogen to Hydrocarbons

Due to recent developments concerning the productive chemical recycling of Carbon Dioxide which we are preparing to make report of, we wanted to begin providing some more background on a concept we ourselves find a bit difficult to grasp, much less to explain.
First, as is almost instinctively known to anyone who has taken high school chemistry or who ever watched Mr. Wizard, in that early foray into educational television, electricity can be employed to split some chemical compounds apart into their simpler molecular or elemental components.
The electrolysis of Water into Oxygen and Hydrogen is an obvious example; and, it is one we have made frequent reference to, as in our report of:

"Concrete of the Future" Made with Coal Ash

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/advancedresearch/pubs/10051/10051.pdf

We have many times documented  for you the now undeniable performance benefits that can be achieved when Coal Ash is used as a fine aggregate, an ingredient in Portland-type Cement Concrete, "PCC", mix; that is, as a substitute for traditional materials that must, at significant cost and environmental disruption, otherwise be mined, quarried and processed.

Japan Helps Iceland Convert CO2 into Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels

http://www.ipt.ntnu.no/~jsg/undervisning/naturgass/oppgaver/Oppgaver2010/10Huot-Marchand.pdf

We've many times documented for you the fact, that, not only can King Coal's friendly ghost, Carbon Dioxide, be reclaimed, from whatever handy or convenient source and then be recycled in the making of both liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels, but, that, as seen, for one example in:

West Virginia Coal Association | Iceland Recycles Even More CO2 | Research & Development; concerning: "Carbon Recycling International (CRI) captures carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and converts carbon dioxide into Renewable Methanol (RM). ... RM is a drop-in fuel for existing automobiles and hybrid flexible vehicles and can be purchased at existing gasoline stations. The production of RM is feasible in many locations in the world with geothermal, wind, and solar energy sources";

Consol Liquid Fuels from Coal with WVU Coal Solvent

Process for producing liquid fuels from coal

We do regret, that, over the past four or five years, we really haven't been able to do a good job of, by using the abundantly available evidence, drawing out for you a complete and organized picture of how our domestic Coal, or, more precisely, the Carbon content of Coal, can be thoroughly and efficiently converted into hydrocarbons; that is, into anything, quite literally anything, we now allow ourselves to be extorted by the pushers of foreign OPEC petroleum for the supply of.

More precisely, we haven't been able to, in a coherent narrative, plot for you the ongoing development of those Coal and Carbon conversion technologies, as they have progressed among certain enlightened groups in the decades following World War II.

Penn State Bugs Make Hydrogen for Hydrocarbon Synthesis

United States Patent Application: 0090159455

Again, since elemental, molecular Hydrogen, H2, is required, in greater or lesser amounts, by some efficient processes for converting Coal into more versatile liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, as seen, for one example, in:
Hydrogen-donor Coal Liquefaction Process; 1980; Exxon Research and Engineering Company; Abstract: Improved liquid yields are obtained during the hydrogen-donor solvent liquefaction of coal ... . Government Interests: The Government of the United States of America has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. E(49-18)-2353 awarded by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration. Claims: A hydrogen-donor liquefaction process for converting coal or similar carbonaceous solids into lower molecular weight liquid hydrocarbons. In processes of this type, the coal ... is contacted with molecular hydrogen and a hydrogen-donor solvent at elevated temperature and pressure in a liquefaction zone";