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The Chinese Academy of Sciences announced recently that over the past two years, its Shanghai Advanced Research Institute has worked in collaboration with Shanghai Huayi Group on the development of industrial technologies for producing methanol from carbon dioxide through hydrogenation. Building on nearly 1,200 hours of continuous operation in single-tube tests, the research team and the design department have recently completed the development of a technical package for producing methanol from carbon dioxide at a capacity of 100,000 to 300,000 tons per year. To date, **10 invention patents have been filed related to this technology**, and the performance of the catalysts as well as the results from single-tube tests exceed those reported in existing publications. Carbon dioxide is the culprit behind global warming, but it has a wide range of uses as an industrial raw material. Traditional carbon capture and storage merely sequesters carbon dioxide without enabling its reuse ； Moreover, the investment is large while the returns are minimal. Therefore, the development of carbon collection and reuse technologies has become a hot topic. Converting renewable energy for power generation and carbon dioxide into methanol to create low-carbon transportation fuels is an effective solution. This technology enables the collection of carbon, which is then used together with hydrogen and oxygen to synthesize methanol; when methanol burns, it reverts back into carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, thus creating a circular and continuous supply of green clean energy. It is said that the conversion of carbon dioxide into methanol can generate three types of industrial value: first, hydrogen and syngas are recovered from industrial processes, which then react with carbon dioxide to produce methanol, thereby increasing the value of the product while reducing carbon emissions. Secondly, it involves improving the utilization rate of power plants; by taking advantage of the excess electrical energy resulting from the mismatch between supply and demand, this energy can be used for electrolytic water splitting to produce hydrogen, as well as for synthesizing methanol from CO2. This not only helps to balance peak and off-peak loads and increase equipment utilization, but also enhances grid stability while reducing carbon emissions. Thirdly, renewable energy can be used to generate hydrogen, and carbon dioxide can be converted into methanol, thereby creating low-carbon transportation fuels with no carbon emissions. The hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to produce methanol allows for the use of CO2 as a raw material in chemical synthesis, thereby enabling the recycling of carbon and hydrogen sources ； On the other hand, it can be integrated with new energy electrolytic hydrogen production and the chlor-alkali industry to enable the storage of hydrogen resources. This process once sparked widespread discussions around the \"methanol economy\" worldwide. However, current catalysts for converting carbon dioxide into methanol suffer from low conversion rates and selectivity. As a result, various companies and research institutions around the world, such as Haldor Topsoe in Denmark, Kansai Electric Power and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan, Lurgi in Germany, and the KOREA Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in South Korea, are working on developing more efficient catalysts and related technologies. With the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Science and Technology Support Program, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Strategic Nuclear Initiatives, and Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission’s key projects, the team from Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, based on in-depth research into the mechanism of CO2 activation, resolved the key issues in the scale-up production of catalysts. Through collaboration with Shanghai Huayi Group, they managed to achieve a seamless and stable operation of the entire pilot-scale production process. To date, the technical package for the production of methanol from carbon dioxide at a capacity of 100,000–300,000 tons per year has been developed and approved by an expert panel, meeting the requirements for carrying out large-scale commercial demonstration applications. In 2009, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation in Japan invested $16 million to build the world’s first pilot plant for producing methanol from carbon dioxide at a capacity of 100 tons per year, and the project was successful. This is the most advanced achievement in converting carbon dioxide into methanol among the publicly available reports. At present, the only industrial CO2-to-methanol production project in operation worldwide is the ETL technology developed by Carbon Recycling International (CRI). This technology extracts carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and then uses it to synthesize methanol, thereby enabling emission reductions while also providing businesses with new ways to generate revenue. The world’s first methanol plant, jointly invested in by the company and Canada at a cost of $5 million, has begun commercial operations in Iceland. This methanol production facility using carbon dioxide and hydrogen had a capacity of 1,300 tons of methanol in 2012, and that capacity was increased to 4,000 tons in 2014. The renewable methanol produced by Carbon Cycle International is intended for the European market; it is known under the brand name Vulcanol and can be mixed with gasoline to produce biofuel products. Methanol production from carbon dioxide, as a new technology, requires **support and incentives. Experts recommend **introducing policies to encourage the use of clean fuels, such as raising taxes on carbon dioxide and PM2.5 emissions, simplifying the approval process for capital investment projects, and providing necessary support for the first batch of demonstration facilities.** On July 3, 2015, China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (referred to as “Geely Group”) announced that it would invest a total of $45.5 million in Carbon Recycling International. This investment plan will be implemented in phases, with additional shares of Carbon Cycle International being purchased within three years after the initial investment. Geely Group will become a major shareholder of Carbon Cycle International and appoint board members. Geely Group and Carbon Cycle International aim to cooperate in exploring the promotion of clean methanol fuel production technologies in China, as well as in developing and promoting the use of 100% methanol fuel vehicles in China, Iceland, and other parts of the world. Both sides agreed that methanol, as a clean and sustainable fuel, will play an increasingly important role in China, Europe, and around the world.