We have documented the practical feasibility of capturing and recycling the CO2 by-product of our coal-use industries, especially by adding it to "syngas" blends, themselves derived from coal, intended for conversion into liquid fuels. But, an article today in the WV Coal News, concerning the costs and difficulties of capturing CO2 generated from coal at the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, and then piping the gas up into Canada to help, to subsidize, Big Oil operations there which are attempting to extort a few last drops of petroleum from an almost-depleted oil field, so that we can be further extorted with their produce, has prompted us to submit more documentation, if more were still needed, that Carbon Dioxide is a valuable by-product of our coal use industries.
Korea, where Imperial Japan established one of their several factories that converted coal into liquid fuels during World War II, has been studying the technology that does exist, on a practical basis, to capture the Carbon Dioxide emitted by coal-use processes and recycle it, convert it, into liquid fuels.
Some excerpts:
"Journal Title
Industrial & engineering chemistry research; American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 1987Document title
Optimal Design of Synthesis Gas Production Process with Recycled Carbon Dioxide Utilization
Authors
CHOI Seungjune ; PARK Jehun; HAN Chonghun; SUP YOON En;
Affiliations
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, 151-744, Seoul, COREE, REPUBLIQUE DE
Abstract
Many countries are trying to reduce their primary energy demand and greenhouse gas (such as carbon dioxide (CO2)) emissions. There has been much research on CO2 utilization to reduce CO2 emission and increase economic efficiency in industries. In this paper, an integrated optimization strategy of an industrial synthesis gas production plant with additional CO222 emission decreased by 31% from the base case to the optimal structure. Three other extensions to the optimal design were evaluated for the case studies." recycling processes using carbon dioxide as a reactant is presented. The CO recycling process allows three different kinds of alternative synthesis gas reaction processes in parallel: steam reforming, dry methane reforming, and reverse water-gas shift reaction. The strategy is based on the integrated superstructure optimization that assists the formulation of the optimal process design problem such that mixed integer programming can be derived. The mathematical programming problem which has flexibility in selecting different synthesis gas reaction processes is used to find the optimal configuration of the process. The industrial synthesis gas plant case studies have been applied to present the optimization strategy. With the optimum configuration, the annualized profit increased by 14% and CO
We don't pretend to understand much of the technical language. One clear message, though, about CO2 recycling, besides the fact it can be done, is that the Koreans, as herein, figured it out twenty years ago, about seventy years after Paul Sabatier was lionized by the Nobel Committee for revealing the fact.