A promising avenue for the future of clean energy is to store it in the form of carbon-based fuels produced from renewable sources, effectively enabling the clean use of liquid fuels such as gasoline. A first step is the electrolysis of carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon monoxide. But current CO-forming catalysts are either not selective enough or too expensive to be industrially viable. Now scientists have developed an Earth-abundant catalyst based on copper-oxide nanowires modified with tin oxide.