Suppose: power "plants"

[TechBear_Seattle]

I'm an aspiring author ("writer wanna-be", if you ask my friends) and I often get odd ideas that might be useful for future works. I've been doing some reading recently that got me thinking about greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, and the need for alternative energy sources. That gave me this idea, and I would appreciate it if the science geeks could kick it around and help me find implications or complications that I haven't yet seen.

Postulate: the discovery of "synthetic photosynthesis" that effectively unburns methane. It starts with one molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2) and two molecules of water (H2O), performs a catalytic process, and returns one molecule of methane (CH4) and two molecules of oxygen (O2). It requires no unsafe materials and can be adapted to operate continuously. This coincides with several discoveries that make methane a viable alternative to fossil hydrocarbons as a source of energy.

With this technology, a nearly autonomous power "plant" design is developed and put in to use. This design extracts carbon dioxide from the air and draws water from local waste management facilities. Much of the methane is sent to a central storage facility where it can be distributed for home and industrial use as natural gas; the rest is used as a gasoline replacement, either as-is or after additional processing to make it easier to handle and use. Some of the oxygen is bottled for medical and industrial use, but most is released back into the atmosphere as a waste material (duplicating the function of the planet's destroyed forests, thus the plant pun.) The energy for this process would come from solar, wind, geo-thermal or wave-action sources. A parallel process would remove atmospheric methane, clearing the air of a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. The only human intervention needed would be security and a small staff to flip switches and watch gauges, making them very inexpensive to run.

I envision countries having several large energy farms which power several methane plants and provide drinking water (through desalenization or waste-water treatment), with water and electricity not needed for the plants being sold to local communities. Many more one plant facilities would import electricity and water.

Assuming the postulates (synthetic photosynthesis, methane based energy tech), how viable is such a scenario? Would this be a reasonably energy efficient way to convert green power into something that is storeable and transportable? If this process were to become very common, would it have a positive impact on global warming? Is it possible it could release too much oxygen, creating a different set of problems for future generations?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Certainly possible in physical terms...

Funnily enough, I had a similar idea a while back - with a bit of genetic tinkering, you could engineer a plant to produce ethanol as well as sucrose: Just drain some sap, distil it and bung it in your gas tank. Then I got carried away and crossed a banana plant with an electric eel to make the DC tree. :) OK, that one may be stretching it a little but it's a nice idea.

The main problem with these ideas is we're nowhere near the level of technology needed to make it work safely and effectively: I'd give it 100 years or so, and hope Monsanto & Exxon have been shutdown by then...
:scared: