Methanol can be synthesized from carbon and hydrogen from any source, including still available fossil fuels and biomass. CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning power plants and other industries and eventually even the CO2 contained in the air, can be a source of carbon. It can also be made from chemical recycling of carbon dioxide, which Carbon Recycling International has demonstrated with its first commercial scale plant. Initially the major source will be the CO2 rich flue gases of fossil-fuel-burning power plants or exhaust from cement and other factories. In the longer range however, considering diminishing fossil fuel resources and the effect of their utilization on earth's atmosphere, even the low concentration of atmospheric CO2 itself could be captured and recycled via methanol, thus supplementing nature’s own photosynthetic cycle. Efficient new absorbents to capture atmospheric CO2 are being developed, mimicking plants' ability. Chemical recycling of CO2 to new fuels and materials could thus become feasible, making them renewable on the human timescale.