We excerpt below a small portion of Paul Sabatier's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he was awarded in 1912.
His accomplishment?
He demonstrated that Carbon Dioxide can, "with the greatest ease", be converted, recycled, into methane.
More comments, and other citations, follow this excerpt:
"Paul Sabatier
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1912Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1912
The Method of Direct Hydrogenation by Catalysis
During the period 1901 to 1905, together with Senderens, I showed that nickel is very suitable for the direct hydrogenation of nitriles into amines and, no less important, of aldehydes and acetones into corresponding alcohols. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are both changed immediately into methane, which can therefore be synthesized with the greatest ease."
"With the greatest ease". Why then, are we so stressed out about CO2? Especially when we know, according to the following, presented without links, that we can perform the:
"Selective oxidation of methane to methanol on a FeZSM-5 surface "
V. I. Sobolev, K. A. Dubkov, O. V. Panna and G. I. Panov
Boreskov Institute of Catalysis, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia
Abstract
Methane is selectively oxidized to methanol ... on FeZSM-5 zeolite ...".
And, a kicker, in case you've forgotten some of our earlier reports: "ZSM-5" zeolite catalyst is at the heart of, it is the key to, Exxon-Mobil's MTG (r) process for converting Methanol To Gasoliine.
Mike, we have, for a century now, been bamboozled by Big Oil, accompanied of late in their mechanizations by their unwitting, but well-meaning, camp followers, the environmentalists.
We have known for almost a hundred years that we can convert our abundant coal into needed liquid fuels. We have known for just as long, as was confirmed by the award of, perhaps, the world's most prestigious acknowledgement of intellectual achievement, the Nobel Prize, that combustion could be reversed, and reversed in practical fashion.
Coal does not present us with a CO2 problem. It does present us with a CO2 opportunity.