Global warming has been largely stopped by reducing the use of fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide and contribute towards the greenhouse effect. It has also taken a lot of work to extract CO 2 from the atmosphere and place it somewhere it cannot cause any harm. The ideal solution is to do both at once. What if CO 2 could be taken out of the atmosphere ? And could use it as a cleaner source of energy, decreasing the need to burn fossil fuels. Researchers from George Washington and Vanderbilt universities might have discovered a way to do this. They describe a process for extracting carbon from atmospheric CO 2 and using it to create carbon nanotubes. These nanotubes could then be used to replace graphite electrodes in electric-powered cars' lithium-ion battery packs.