First, it isn't the USDOE directly who have, in this case at least, figured out how to produce valuable "Products" from Carbon Dioxide, as we might recover from the flue-gases resulting from our economically essential use of Coal in the generation of genuinely abundant and truly affordable electric power.
Herein we report more confirmation by our United States Government that the solid mineral residua, the Ash, left behind by our economically essential use of Coal in the generation of truly abundant and genuinely affordable electric power, can be seen and treated as a valuable mineral resource.
For example, Coal Ash can be used and consumed as a component of various construction materials, in which applications the Ash serves to replace virgin mineral materials that would otherwise have to be quarried or mined.
We've documented many times, as in, for just a couple of examples:
Korea CO2 to Methanol & Dimethyl Ether | Research & Development | News; concerning: "United States Patent 6,248.795 - Dimethyl Ether and Methanol from Carbon Dioxide; 2001; Inventor: Ki Won Jun and Kyu Wan Lee, Daejeon, KR; Assignee: Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology; Abstract: This invention relates to the process of preparing from carbon dioxide a mixture of dimethyl ether and methanol which are useful as clean fuel or raw materials in the chemical industry. More particularly, this invention relates to the process of preparing dimethyl ether and methanol in high yield without by-products such as hydrocarbons by means of chemical conversion of carbon dioxide"; and:
United States Patent Application: 0140251819
We're presenting herein a formal disclosure of technology developed by the Pennsylvania State University for, ostensibly, perhaps primarily, extracting Hydrogen from the abundant Water, H2O, molecule - - in a process which can be driven by heat energy derived from environmental sources, specifically solar, or, from industrial or chemical process waste heat.
The process is enabled through the leverage of "osmosis", coupled with membrane filtration technology, as will be seen, and to an extent explained, further on.
United States Patent Application: 0140243435
Carbon Dioxide, as is co-produced in only a small way, relative to some all-natural and non-political sources of it's emission, such as the Earth's inexorable processes of planetary volcanism, from our economically essential use of Coal in the generation of truly abundant and genuinely affordable electric power, could and should be treated as a valuable raw material resource.
We can reclaim Carbon Dioxide from whatever source most convenient to us, and then convert that Carbon Dioxide directly into fuel alcohols of nearly immense utility.