A CAR that runs on fuel made from CO2 removed from the Atmosphere creating a carbon neutral loop!

[Jim Lane]

43. It's not being touted as perpetual motion or even energy gain.

I agree with you about woo in general but here you're overreacting by seeing it where it doesn't exist.

The claim is not that the device will somehow defy the first or second law of thermodynamics. Here's the actual argument:

* Right now, virtually our vehicles move by burning irreplaceable fossil fuels. That bit about "irreplaceable" means that the practice is unsustainable in the long run (and maybe not very long), plus in the short run it's causing a net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, with adverse effects already being observed. We do have access to renewable energy sources, but powering a car by putting a wind turbine or a solar panel on its roof isn't feasible.

* The purpose of this technology would be to take the energy from, for example, a large wind farm, and use it to create a concentrated fuel that could be stored in a vehicle's "gas" tank. The process is sustainable as long as the sun keeps shining and has no net effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The electric cars now in use seek to accomplish the same thing. This proposed carbon-extraction technology may or may not turn out to be a better way of doing it, but certainly there's no reason to write it off a priori. I think even Eddington would agree with that.