In further support of our thesis that Carbon Dioxide has the potential to be a raw material resource of great economic utility, as opposed to a pollutant of environmental liability, we present the enclosed and attached from multiple research centers in the United Kingdom.
There is not much new herein, relative to information we've previously brought to your attention. But, the weight of the accumulating evidence should, we would think, begin to right the scales that have been, we contend artificially and deliberately, tipped for so long against our vital coal industries.
We'll append some comment, following the excerpt, but we call your attention immediately to the date of original publication: 1976.
We submit that, as established by a great amount of impeccable documentation we've presented to you and to the WV Coal Association, we've known how to recycle Carbon Dioxide into valuable hydrocarbons even before 1976, since, in fact, the first half of the last century, when the Nobel Committee awarded their Prize in Chemistry to Paul Sabatier, for demonstrating that CO2 could be recycled. That, just as we've known since WWII that coal could, on an industrial scale, be converted into liquid fuels, as documented for us by the Allied Command, when they named Germany's and Japan's multiple coal liquefaction factories as targets of strategic, high-priority bombing; again, as has been thoroughly documented.
As an aside, we also submit that, in some quarters, coal liquefaction industry is still viewed as a strategic threat.
In any case, according to the enclosed documentation, from unimpeachable sources, we can, as we have already documented to the point of tedium, make Methanol from CO2. And, we can do so in an economical way, with a resultant collection of multiple benefits.
The excerpt, with comment appended:
"Title: Methanol Synthesis from Flue-gas CO2 and Renewable Electricity
Authors: D. Mignard; M. Sahibzada; J.M. Duthie; H.W. Whittington
Department of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
Department of Materials, Imperial College of Technology and Medicine, London
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Edinburgh
Source: International journal of hydrogen energy; 2003, vol. 28; Originally published by Elsevier, 1976.
Abstract: The twin requirements of reducing CO2 emission levels and increasing the level of penetration of renewable energy will involve innovative technical and operational solutions. This paper describes a novel but proven process (CO2 + 3 H2 → CH3OH+H2O) which could be adapted to use, as input reagents, CO2 emitted from fossil-fueled power stations and hydrogen from electrolysis of water by a zero-emissions electricity source, e.g. renewable and/or nuclear energy. This approach, in addition to addressing the above two issues, would produce methanol for which there is a ready and expanding market. A preliminary analysis is presented of the process economics and operational regimes necessary in the UK Electrical Supply Industry to accommodate the methanol plant. Four different designs are assessed, all based on a supply of renewable energy limited to 16 h/day when demand is off-peak. Option 'A' relies on a variable 100-500 MW supply, whereas Option 'B' makes use of a steady 100 MW during the availability period. Option 'C' is identical to 'B', except for the use of pressurized electrolyzers at 30 bar instead of conventional ones. Option 'D' departs from 'B' with the use of hydrogen-powered fuel cells for power generation during the period of no availability. In the absence of a market for the electrolytic oxygen, Option 'B' is found to be the most economical, and it should be profitable if a favourable taxation regime applies on zero-emission automotive fuels. However, if the oxygen can be sold to a local industry via pipeline, Option 'C' could be potentially viable, even in the absence of tax breaks. It is claimed that significant benefits might accrue from successful development of a methanol process and that it may ease the absorption of increasing levels of embedded generation into the electricity supply network."
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As in other Carbon Dioxide recycling technologies we've documented in our reports, Oxygen, in at least one of the "Options", is generated as what could be a commercially valuable by-product.
The Abstract indicates that the evaluations were actually pretty thorough. Our limitations prevent us from attempting to elaborate or explain the details; but, in essence, and for instance, a source of constant, continuously-available power, such as a hydroelectric dam, could, during times of lower, off-peak demand, use it's excess capacity to drive the process of Carbon Dioxide recycling, and thus generate Methanol. That Methanol could be stored for additional power generation in a separate facility at times of peak demand; or, directed into other applications, such as what would, in effect, be "zero-emission automotive fuels".