The CAMERE process (carbon dioxide hydrogenation to form methanol via a reverse-water-gas-shift reaction) was developed and evaluated. The reverse-water-gas-shift reactor and the methanol synthesis reactor were serially aligned to form methanol from CO2 hydrogenation. Carbon dioxide was converted to CO and water by the reverse-water-gas-shift reaction (RWReaction) to remove water before methanol was synthesized. With the elimination of water by RWReaction, the purge gas volume was minimized as the recycle gas volume decreased. Because of the minimum purge gas loss by the pretreatment of RWReactor, the overall methanol yield increased up to 89% from 69%. An active and stable catalyst ... was developed. The system was optimized and compared with the commercial methanol synthesis processes from natural gas and coal."
Aside from the fact that a CO2 recycling system, which could provide us with fuels and a raw material for plastics manufacturing has been developed, and could thus put a stop to the economic threats to our coal industries, and put an end to our OPEC bondage, has been developed, is the sad truth that news of the development was published in the United States, as in "Copyright © 1999 American Chemical Society", but we are all still arguing about coal-crippling issues like Cap&Trade and Sequestration.
Don't our Press and our political office holders owe all of us in Coal Country, all of us in the US, an explanation as to why we have been left to worry about our security and livelihoods, while they waste ink and time on what should be irrelevancies like oil shortages, OPEC hostilities and green house gas emissions?
The very real technologies that exist to, cleanly and profitably, convert our abundant coal into liquid fuels, and to recycle the Carbon Dioxide by-product of coal use into even more liquid fuels and manufacturing raw materials, are established, and, in certain circles, well-known. It is far, far past time they became well-known in some broader circles.