Comment by adrian_b

For that purpose and for long-term storage of energy and for aircraft/spacecraft, synthetic hydrocarbons are much better.

Making synthetic hydrocarbons was already done at large scale during WWII, but it was later abandoned due to the availability of very cheap extracted oil.

So when oil was not available, the economy could still be based on synthetic hydrocarbons even with the inefficient methods of that time (it is true however that at that time they captured CO2 from burning coal or wood, not directly from the air, where it is diluted).

Today one could develop much more efficient methods for synthesizing hydrocarbons from CO2 and water, but the level of investment for such technologies has been negligible in comparison with the money wasted for research in non-viable technologies, like using hydrogen instead of hydrocarbons, or with the money spent in things like AI datacenters.