Frankenstein Gas

Sapphire’s goal is to be the world’s leading producer of renewable petrochemical products.

"Renewable petrochemical products?"  What new language do you speak, friend?

Mayfield is widely regarded as the world’s leader in the creation of transgenic algae. Briggs, who oversaw the sequencing of the rice genome, is a pioneer in the development of genetically modified crops.

Uh oh!  Dr. Frankenstein raises his loathsome specter on an innocent world.  If that doesn't make organic farmers quake, nothing will.

Sapphire Energy is a private company making extraordinary claims in an R&D industry known for exaggerations that would make a Texan blush.

Are the claims of being able to make gasoline from air (specifically CO2) and water the delusions of a modern alchemist?

No they are not.

These are reputable scientists but they are not telling all.  They have no need to.  Best they don't.  People steal ideas sad to say.  Even scientists if you can imagine that.  There could even be - perish the thought - fraud involved.  [Don't tell anybody that scientific fraud is rampant through the ages.  Not nice to tarnish the reputation of even the lesser saviours of mankind.]  I doubt there is any true fraud.  Many of have shown their work.

If the capability were fully functional and economically viable, why heck the plants would be under construction to produce all that gasoline without the bother of even refining I daresay.

I spent most of my working life in R&D.  Some of the projects in our lab would seem laughable in today's world.  One was a huge drum and a laser designed to store far less data than today's optical disks.  Hey, we were trying.  The kluge never worked.  The technology needed some work.

And so it likely is IMO with the monster makers at Sapphire Energy.

Will biomass some day do what solar can never do?

I think so.

It is an opinion like any other that has no particular merit other than a lifetime of experience with advanced R&D.

What is most distressing are the deniers that will not bother to look at the evidence but then they are always with us.  The deniers are the majority of mankind, the conservatives that form the necessary function of an anchor for the ship of state as well as the advance of science.  

Maybe worse are the fevered converts who know all the problems of energy and global warming are now solved but they, at least, are more fun.

Biomass and geothermal are where it's at.  Solar not so much but even that has its uses and may prove in time a superior option.  The future is known only to fools and prophets.  There seem to be many more fools than prophets.  The foregoing is this fool's prediction.

If you are still worried about Frankenstein monsters, I advise you to hang some garlic around your neck and eat lots of it.  Should keep most others away from you whether it helps with the monsters or not.  Garlic is not just for protection against vampires.  It is multi-functional like all biomass.  Could produce as much power as Mark Twain's mummies I imagine.  Mark Twain claimed the Trans-Egypt Railroad used mummies for fuel.  Nobody knows if Twain was trying to be funny.  Twain was known to try his hand at humor.  He was obviously not a scientist.

All JMO.

Best,  Terry