> The other thing is that the entire pathway can now be put inside cells, either normal bacteria like E. coli or the synthetic cells with a minimal genome that researchers are working on. If that's the case, then the need to supply all the chemical co-factors should go away, since the cells should be producing them anyway. More importantly, if the cell is made to depend on this pathway as its only source of carbon, evolution would have the chance to optimize it even further.
Immediate thought: What happens when that bioengineered E. coli or whatever, which you're hoping evolution will make work even more efficiently, leaves your carbon-sequestering vats and starts reproducing in the wild? Eventually you reach a point where we're getting record low CO2 levels. Hello, new Ice Age.
(I am sure there are many reasons this would not happen but it certainly makes for a nice bullshit explanation if I wanted to write a story set in a far-future ice planet.)
Immediate thought: What happens when that bioengineered E. coli or whatever, which you're hoping evolution will make work even more efficiently, leaves your carbon-sequestering vats and starts reproducing in the wild? Eventually you reach a point where we're getting record low CO2 levels. Hello, new Ice Age.
(I am sure there are many reasons this would not happen but it certainly makes for a nice bullshit explanation if I wanted to write a story set in a far-future ice planet.)