Permanent underground storage is only one of the options for dealing with CO2 captured at a power station. One much-discussed alternative is to feed the gas to algae and turn the algae into biofuels. A less familiar but equally promising approach, advocated by the Polish environmentalist Marcin Gerwin, is to convert the CO2 into methanol fuel using a process called “artifical photosynthesis”.

In this system, the first step is to dissolve the CO2 in water. The resulting solution is directed into tubes containing a catalyst that is activated by UV light and causes the dissolved CO2 to react with water (H2O) to form methanol (CH3OH). The methanol can then be burned for power generation, displacing coal use, or used as a vehicle fuel instead of oil.

The basic conversion process for turning pure CO2 into methanol is proven, and research is now being carried out to assess the viability of using the technology on unprocessed gas from power-station flues.

The profile of the CO2-to-methanol approach has been boosted by support from chemistry the Nobel Laureate George Olah.