C02 & Carbon Neutral Hydrocarbons

http://people.ucalgary.ca/~keith/papers/103.Zeman.2008.CHNCs.e.pdf

 

We attach and enclose yet more documentation that the Carbon Dioxide by-product of our coal use industry does not have to be, like an offensively eccentric family member who's suffered a brain injury, expensively captured, trussed up and trucked away for doubtfully-effective confinement in some rich people's leaky basement, i.e., in petroleum reservoir sequestration.

 

Geologic sequestration of Carbon Dioxide is an expensive and unnecessary, and likely ineffective, waste of a potentially-valuable resource arising from our use of coal.

 

Herein, that fact is again affirmed by researchers David Keith, whom we've previously cited on the utilization of CO2 in our dispatches, of Canada's University of Calgary; and, Frank Zeman, of Columbia University, where other researchers we've previously cited have been working on similar issues.

 

Note that this is a fairly recent report presented at, and by, the prestigious, impeccable, Royal Society.

 

The excerpt:

 

"CARBON NEUTRAL HYDROCARBONS

 

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. August (2008) 366, 3901–3918 

 

BY FRANK S. ZEMAN AND DAVID W. KEITH

 

Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University,
918 S. W. Mudd, 500 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA

 

Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Department of
Economics, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta,
Canada T2N 1N4 

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector may be the most difficult aspect of climate change mitigation. We suggest that carbon neutral hydrocarbons (CNHCs) offer an alternative pathway for deep emission cuts that complement the use of decarbonized energy carriers. Such fuels are synthesized from atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon neutral hydrogen. The result is a liquid fuel compatible with the existing transportation infrastructure and therefore capable of a gradual deployment with minimum supply disruption. Capturing the atmospheric CO2 can be accomplished using biomass or industrial methods referred to as air capture. The viability of biomass fuels is strongly dependent on the environmental impacts of biomass production. Strong constraints on land use may favour the use of air capture. We conclude that CNHCs may be a viable alternative to hydrogen or conventional biofuels and warrant a comparable level of research effort and support."

 

("CNHCs may be a viable alternative to" to enforced Sequestration or Cap and Trade, as well, we submit, and could, with coal-to-liquid conversion industry, lead us to domestic liquid fuel self-sufficiency, as in "fuels ... from atmospheric carbon dioxide .. (are) ... compatible with the existing transportation infrastructure.)

 

"Beyond efficiency, deep reductions in emissions from the transportation sector will require a change in vehicle fuel. Changes in fuel are challenging owing to the tight coupling between vehicle fleet and refuelling infrastructure. Economic network effects and technological lock-in arise because users demand ubiquitous refuelling, yet investments in new fuel infrastructure are typically uneconomic without a large vehicle fleet. Moreover, each of the three leading alternative fuel options, hydrogen, ethanol and electricity, faces technical and economic hurdles precluding near-term, major reductions in transportation emissions using these technologies."

 

(These researchers acknowledge a key point little discussed openly: Our world-wide transportation fleet just might be the major human-based contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere. And, the primary options being promoted for vehicular emissions of CO2, "hydrogen, ethanol and electricity" are faced by economic and technical barriers that preclude "major reductions in transportation emissions" by using them.)

 

"We consider a fourth alternative: carbon neutral hydrocarbons (CNHCs).

Hydrocarbons can be carbon neutral if they are made from carbon recovered from biomass or captured from ambient air using industrial processes. The individual capture technologies required to achieve CNHCs have been considered elsewhere; our goal is to systematically consider CNHCs as an alternative and independent route to achieving carbon neutral transportation fuels.

 

We argue for the development of CNHC technologies because they offer an alternative path to carbon neutral transportation with important technical and managerial advantages. We do not claim that CNHCs are ready for large-scale deployment ... (But) ...  We do argue that they are promising enough to warrant research and development support on a par with efforts aimed at advancing the alternatives."

 

(In other words, we should put at least as much effort into carbon recycling as we are into "the alternatives",  which include, in the United States, relative to coal use, Cap and Trade and Sequestration.)

 

"CNHCs are effectively an alternative method for using carbon-free hydrogen ... Converting CO2 into fuel by adding hydrogen can be viewed as a form of hydrogen storage. Once the hydrogen is produced, a choice exists between distribution and incorporation into a hydrocarbon fuel. The latter is potentially attractive because the energy cost of centrally produced hydrogen is inexpensive compared with crude oil or gasoline at the pump."

 

(Note that "hydrogen", which might be needed in supplemental quantities for coal liquefaction and CO2 hydrogenation, is "inexpensive compared with crude oil". - JtM)

"We define CNHCs as those whose oxidation does not result in a net increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Hydrocarbon fuels can be made carbon neutral either directly by manufacturing them using carbon captured from the atmosphere, or indirectly by tying the production of fossil fuels to a physical transfer of atmospheric carbon to permanent storage. The indirect route allows for a gradual transition from the current infrastructure, based on petroleum, to a sustainable system based on atmospheric sources of carbon.

 

It is vital to distinguish negative emissions achieved by permanent physical storage from economic offsets (carbon credits) or the sequestration of carbon in the active biosphere. While the use of carbon offsets such as those allowed under the clean development mechanism may have some benefits, they are not equivalent to non-emission (Wara 2007). There are also tangible benefits to increasing stocks of carbon in soils or standing biomass, but such organic stores are highly labile and may be quickly released back to the atmosphere by changes in management practices or climate. Geological storage reservoirs for CO2 may also leak. However, the retention time for CO2 in geological reservoirs is at least 103 times longer than that for carbon stored in the biosphere. In most cases, a very large fraction of CO2 placed in geological storage is expected to be retained for time scales exceeding 108 years.

 

(So, "Geological storage reservoirs for CO2 may .. leak" and, they are trying to make it sound as if "108 years" isn't bad for keeping CO2 underground in a sequestration site. But, consider: They admit that the CO2 does leak out of sequestration and we will, sooner or later, have to deal with it all over again. Wouldn't it then be better to develop carbon recycling industry, now? And, thereby free our coal-use industries from economic burden and establish a basis for domestic, US, liquid fuel self-sufficiency?)

 

"Direct and indirect routes to CNHCs both begin by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. Carbon can be captured from the atmosphere by either harvesting biomass from sustainable plantations or direct industrial processes referred to as air capture."

 

(Thus, "direct industrial processes referred to as air capture" for the collection of Carbon Dioxide, which could be sited to utilize available environmental energies to capture CO2 from the atmosphere do exist, and coal-use facilities do not have to be expensively retrofitted with CO2 scrubbers.)

 

"The synthetic fuel pathway depends on a source of primary energy to drive the required chemical reactions including the supply of hydrogen. As with hydrogen and electricity, these synthetic hydrocarbons are an energy carrier produced from a primary energy source such as wind, nuclear power or fossil fuels with CCS. Unlike hydrogen and electricity, they are carbonaceous fuels that are nevertheless carbon neutral as they were derived from the atmosphere. 

 

We first review the technologies for capturing carbon from the air, using either biomass growth or air capture. The review is followed by discussions on transforming the carbon, in the form of high-purity CO2, into hydrocarbon fuels."

 

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Well, there it is. The authors waffle a bit in their concluding comments, as scientists often do; but, it's clear: The Carbon Dioxide arising, in a smaller way relative to natural sources such as volcanism and seasonal vegetative rot, from our use of coal can be captured from the atmosphere in places, because of natural energy sources and useable space, convenient; then, economically transformed, recycled, into liquid fuels.

 

As a post script, we reproduce, following, a selection from the authors' reference list. It is extensive, and serves to reinforce our assertion that Carbon Dioxide is a valuable resource. We shouldn't, through deception and extortion, allow ourselves to be forced into wasting it. 

 

 

Note, following, especially, such entries as: "Use of U.S. croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change" and, from 1946: "Removal of carbon dioxide from atmospheric air":