DOE - Fossil Energy: Innovative Concepts for Beneficial Reuse of CO2 Projects
The enclosed link leads to an announcement by the United States Department of Energy. It details a number of research and development projects, funded by President Obama's Economic Recovery Act, that are to be focused on the recycling, in various ways, of Carbon Dioxide.
We're certain none of this makes President Obama very popular in West Texas, but the projects should be of interest to everyone in West Virginia, and to everyone else in US Coal Country.
Of most interest to us is the plain fact that the Administration recognizes and proclaims that there can be such a thing as a "beneficial reuse of Carbon Dioxide".
Note that several of the projects touch specifically on some of our previous dispatches to the West Virginia Coal Association, concerning the potentials for recycling Carbon Dioxide into fuels and plastics.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"Recovery Act and Innovative Concepts for Beneficial Reuse of Carbon Dioxide
Funding for 12 projects to test innovative concepts for the beneficial use of carbon dioxide (CO2) was announced by the U.S. Department of Energy. The awards are part of $1.4 billion in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for projects that will capture carbon dioxide from industrial sources.
These 12 projects will engage in a first phase feasibility study that will examine beneficial uses in a variety of ways, including mineralization to carbonates directly through conversion of CO2 in flue gas; the use of CO2 from power plants or industrial applications to grow algae/biomass; and conversion of CO2 to fuels and chemicals. Each project will be subject to further competitive evaluation in 2010 to determine a portfolio of projects that will be funded for design, construction, and testing.
The initial phase of these 12 projects includes $17.4 million in ARRA funding and $7.7 million in private funding for a total investment of $25.1 million. During a competitive Phase Two process, approximately $82.6 million in Recovery Act money will be awarded to the most promising of these projects to complete design, construction and testing of pilot systems.
Innovative concepts for beneficial CO2 use awards include:
Alcoa, Inc. (Alcoa, Pa.)—Alcoa, Inc., and its partners, U.S. Nels, CO2 Solutions Inc., and Strategic Solutions Inc., will capture and convert CO2 into mineral carbonates for reuse. Flue gas will be treated in a sodium alkali scrubber design, coupled with a carbonic anhydrase-based enzyme catalyst, to convert alkaline clay to carbonate-enhanced clay for soil remediation. (DOE share: $999,451)
Calera Corporation (Los Gatos, Calif.)—Calera will demonstrate an innovative process to directly mineralize CO2 in flue gas to carbonates and convert them to materials directly usable in the construction industry. Calera, along with Bechtel, EPRI, U.S. Concrete, and Khosla Ventures, will use a novel membrane electrolysis process to produce sodium hydroxide for use in a CO2 absorber. Intermediate slurry from the absorber will be converted to aggregates and cementitious substitutes. (DOE share: $1,681,377)
Gas Technology Institute (GTI) (Des Plaines, Ill.)—GTI and partners University of California San Diego, the University of Connecticut, San Diego Gas and Electric Company, and Southern California Gas Company propose to capture power plant flue gas CO2 using macroalgae (seaweeds) cultivated in nonsubmerged greenhouses. The macroalgae will be harvested and processed via anaerobic digestion into methane for fuel to the power plant. (DOE share: $993,284)
Novomer Inc. (Ithica, N.Y.)—Researchers from Novomer plan to develop polycarbonates from a petrochemical, CO2, and a proprietary catalyst. The system will permanently store CO2 in new chemical structures which are up to 50% by weight CO2. (DOE share: $2,107,900)
Phycal LLC (Highland Heights, Ohio)—The project objective is to capture CO2 gas and recycle it in an algal oil production process in an open raceway pond using partially processed wastewater. Phycal, along with SSOE Engineering; GE Global Research; Aqua Engineers; Seambiotic; Kuehnle AgroSystems, Inc.; Group 70; and the NASA Glenn Research Center, will use two patented technologies, Heteroboost™ and Olexal™, to cultivate the microalgae and produce algal oil. (DOE share: $3,000,000)
Renewable Energy Institute International (REII) (McClellan, Calif.)—REII will process CO2 and natural gas in a solar reformer to produce syngas suitable for a Fischer-Tropsch process for making liquid fuels. REII will collaborate with Desert Research Institute, Pacific Renewable Fuels, and Clean Energy Systems Inc. (DOE share: $1,358,920)
Research Triangle Institute (RTI) (Durham, N.C.)—RTI, along with Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) and Süd Chemie, will use CO2 and waste fuel gas stream in existing ethylene production facilities to produce pipeline-quality synthetic natural gas. The process will leverage commercial reactor technology used in fluid catalytic crackers in petroleum refining and a novel nickel-based catalyst developed by RTI. (DOE share: $1,065,743)
Skyonic Corporation (Austin, Texas)—Skyonic will demonstrate its patented SkyMine® process to remove CO2 from industrial waste streams and generate saleable carbonate and/or bicarbonate materials. Skyonic will collaborate with Capitol Aggregates; Ford, Bacon and Davis LLC; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom; RDB Environmental Consulting; and Wm Smith and Co. (DOE share: $3,000,000)
Sunrise Ridge Algae (SRA) (Houston, Texas)—This project will involve the cultivation of algae using CO2 from cement plant waste stack gas. The harvested algae will be converted into liquid fuel and carbonaceous char using catalyzed thermochemical conversion technology. The liquid fuel may serve as a diesel fuel replacement or extender, while the char can be burned as fuel instead of coal in the cement factory kilns. SRA will collaborate with URS Group, Texas Lehigh Cement Company, UOP LLC, and the Houston Technology Center. (DOE share: $511,327)
Touchstone Research Laboratory (Triadelphia, W.Va.)—Touchstone will use a novel phase change material to enclose raceway ponds where they will cultivate algae using CO2 from combustor flue gas. The algal lipids will be recovered to produce biofuel and the algae biomass will be used in an anaerobic digestion process to produce electricity and recover nutrients. Partners with Touchstone include The Ohio State University Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center and GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. (DOE share: $517,818)
University of Massachusetts, Lowell (Lowell, Mass.)-The University of Massachusetts, Lowell, along with Jordan Development Company and Core Energy, will use CO2 to investigate permanent storage via mineralization in Otsego County, Mich., by injecting the CO2, water, and black carbon as an emulsion into a nearby semi-depleted oil reservoir. (DOE share: $572,891)
UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.)—UOP and partners Honeywell-Resins and Chemicals, Honeywell-Process Solutions, Envergent, Aquaflow, Vaperma, and International Alliance Group will use a Vaperma membrane to capture exhaust stack CO2 from the Hopewell, Va., caprolactum (used to make nylon) plant. The CO2 will be used to grow microalgae for eventual processing to biofuel and fertilizer. (DOE share: $1,522,149)"
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There is still some wasteful oil well injection planned, but:
In Triadelphia, WV, they will be further developing the concept of making fuel, and other products, from biolipids and other materials produced by algae in ponds fed by flue gas.
There is one project, about which we have quite a lot more to follow in a separate dispatch, where a Texas oil industry service company, Kellogg, Brown & Root will work, as we have documented to be feasible, on converting CO2 into synthetic natural gas.
The company Novomer, as we have earlier reported, will further research the conversion of CO2 into raw material for the synthesis of plastics.
Although it should have been awarded to Penn State University for further development of their tri-reforming technology, an entity in California will research the reforming of natural gas, i.e., methane, with CO2, to make Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbon liquids.
And, we consider that to be something of a waste of time and money, anyway, since, as we have documented, the contractors United Technologies and Hamilton Standard have already patented Carbon Dioxide-to-Liquid Fuel technologies for our US Department of Defense.
But, this is official acknowledgement, by the Obama administration, that, as we have been saying, the Carbon Dioxide which arises, in a small way, relative to natural sources of emission, from, among other industries such as cement manufacture, our productive uses of Coal, is a raw material resource of great potential value.
We can make productive, profitable use of it. We don't have to force our vital Coal-use industries, at gun point, as it were, to ship, all at their expense, the CO2 they co-produce down to West Texas for false-pretense sequestration in leaky oil wells. Nor, do we have to tax them out of business through revenue schemes like Cap and Trade.