Converting carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons consumes energy. If the product is simply burned for fuel, I can see no benefit to this effort at all. Energy will have been consumed and carbon will be re-released.
What am I missing here? All I can see is a battery in the form of gasoline. And its efficiency remains to be seen - assuming the process actually works and can scale.
That's exactly the point, we could keep using existing planes, trains, cars, ships, trucks, etc. without releasing new carbon.
Electric cars are just now practical and available for most people, but without radically improved battery tech we can't make practical electric airlines for example.
In that case, carbon capture to produce organic chemical feedstocks makes a lot more sense than burning for fuel. Given that there's no information about what the process entails, it's hard to draw many conclusions.
What am I missing here? All I can see is a battery in the form of gasoline. And its efficiency remains to be seen - assuming the process actually works and can scale.