Carbon Dioxide Could Represent Untapped Energy Source: A Study

"One man's trash is another man's treasure" is one saying that may hold true for carbon dioxide, according to a new study that presents a proof-of-concept technique to harvest it.

When two fluids with different compositions are mixed, mixing energy is released. This holds true for gases as well, though the technology to harvest this energy source doesn't exist quite yet.

However, this didn't stop Bert Hamelers, a program director at Westsus, the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology in the Netherlands, from leading a team in the development of a system that could ultimately be used to extract energy from the known greenhouse gas.

The method involves alternately mixing a liquid with combustion gas containing a high concentration of CO2 and then pumping these liquids between specialized membranes in order to produce an electric current.

The current, Hamelers explained, is the result of the concentration gradient between the combustion gas and air.

All told, the researcher estimates that if applied to all the CO2 released globally, the method would produce some 1,570 terawatts of additional electricity every year, or roughly 400 times that produced by the Hoover Dam during the same time period.

While the approach wouldn't emit any greenhouse gases of its own, neither would it get rid of CO2, the Hamelers stresses.

"You use the energy that is now wasted," he told NBC News. "You bring it in and get the extra energy out, but you cannot sequester it."

Capable of lasting anywhere from 50 to 100 years in the atmosphere, CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, with the United States alone producing roughly 5,700 million metric tons of CO2 every year. As of 2011, the largest players were electricity, which accounted for 38 percent of CO2 emissions, transportation at 31 percent and industry at 14 percent.