Ethanol's next breakthrough? Turning greenhouse gas into fuel.

Somewhere within the walls of a Tennessee lab, researchers stumbled upon an accidental finding that could potentially revolutionize the ethanol market hundreds of miles away in Iowa. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory unintentionally uncovered a process that uses tiny bits of carbon and copper to convert the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into ethanol fuel.While the research remains in its preliminary phase, it could represent a breakthrough for renewable fuel operations in Iowa. By their nature, ethanol plants produce masses of excess carbon dioxide through the distillation process. If commercialized, the new process could allow ethanol producers to make even more ethanol fuel from the CO2 that's otherwise wasted.