Carbon has two advantages that make it the mainstay of our energy infrasatructure.
One is that it forms molecules that are liquid at the temperatures we want to operate in. This is the ideal energy carrier, as we can all understand when we fill up at the petrol pump. If the engine burns the fuel efficiently then the byproducts are CO2 and H2O which are harmless to humans in the short run.
The other advantage is that you can get the carbon-based fuel out of the ground. However this is actually bad and we need to stop doing it because adding carbon to the carbon cycle has various bad effects such as climate change.
All our waste streams are full of carbon, including plastic waste, sewerage, food waste, and more. We need to get rid of that waste because the bacteria and other bugs will figure out how to turn it into CO2 for their energy. So let's consider the possibility of using it to create our carbon-based fuel.
There are modern nuclear reactor designs that produce high temperature industrial heat. That is what you need to separate the carbon and hydrogen which can then be combined to make fuel. Maybe I don't have the scale right, but this seems, in a vague general way, to be the right way to create a circular economy that takes advantage of carbon's wonderful chemical properties.
