We have as yet been unable to ascertain the credentials or affiliations of the inventors named in this United States Patent Application, wherein it is proposed that environmental energy be used to recycle power plant Carbon Dioxide, via the synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels.
However, the technology they describe is consistent with others, similar, we have cited from impeccable sources, such as the USDOE's Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories; especially as regards their "Green Freedom" concept, about which we have earlier reported.
And, the applicant inventors are careful to cite authoritative sources of their own in the course of their Disclosure. One, of special interest, which we, due to our technical limitations, have as yet been unable to access, is identified, as excerpted from the Application, in:
""Sequestration" (pumping enormous volumes of CO2 underground and hoping it won't leak out) is impractical for overwhelming technical and political reasons. The clear and convincing case against carbon dioxide sequestration, published by the GAO, can be found at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d081080.pdf. A need exists for an alternative to sequestration, and the present invention addresses that need.""
The full Disclosure is complicated, but a close reading will reveal that, not only have the inventors incorporated components of the USDOE's Green Freedom concept, they also specify the incorporation of "Syntrolysis" technology, about which we have lately been reporting, wherein Carbon Dioxide and Water, together, as they might be found in power plant exhaust scrubbers, are "co-electrolyzed", using energy extracted from the environment, to yield a hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
Another advance excerpt serves to highlight that concept:
"(An) hybrid power system ... comprising means for simultaneous electrolysis of carbon dioxide and water to produce syngas."
Summary comment follows further excerpts from:
"US Patent Application No.: 20100146927 - Hybrid Power for Cracking Power Plant CO2
Publication Date: June, 2010
Inventors: Wilmot McCutchen and David McCutchen
Abstract: Power from wind, solar, and other intermittent energy sources cracks carbon dioxide, NOx, SOx, and other emissions from fossil fuel power plants, which provide baseload power to the grid. By this hybrid power system, intermittent sources can be integrated in power generation without compromising the reliability of the grid and without long power line connections. Carbon dioxide becomes, in effect, a storage medium for energy produced by intermittent sources. The CO2 can be pipelined to sites where wind, solar, tidal or and other intermittent energy sources are available, or power lines can be run from such intermittent sources to convenient sites for cracking.
Claims: A hybrid power system, comprising:a power plant wherein energy from carbonaceous fuel is used to produce electric power, the power plant producing waste products including CO2;a source of energy selected from the group consisting of wind, photovoltaic solar, concentrating solar, and tidal;means for electrolytic cracking of CO2, said cracking means powered at least in part by said energy source; and means for delivering CO2 from said power plant to said means for electrolytic cracking.
(And) means for delivering oxygen from said means for electrolytic cracking of CO2 to the power plant.
(And) means for delivering oxygen from said means for electrolytic cracking of CO2 to the power plant.
(And) ... means for simultaneous electrolysis of carbon dioxide and water to produce syngas.
Syngas can be processed by the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis into liquid vehicle fuel (synfuel),"
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There is quite a lot more to it, of course, but there you have the essence of the thing.
Note, that, as in: "delivering oxygen from said means for electrolytic cracking of CO2 to the power plant", pure Oxygen is one, perhaps the one, byproduct of electrolytic Carbon Dioxide electrolysis to produce hydrocarbon synthesis gas. And, herein, it is recycled to the power plant's Coal-burning boilers to enhance the combustion of, and to improve the efficiency of energy extraction from, Coal.
In any case, we have in this Disclosure yet further documentation of the fact that Carbon Dioxide, as arises in a small way, relative to natural sources of emission, such as volcanoes, from our varied and productive uses of Coal, is a valuable raw material resource.
We can make, as demonstrated and described in this United States Patent Application, liquid fuels out of it.
We shouldn't, through Cap & Trade legislation, tax our vital Coal-use industries out of existence because they produce it for us. Nor should we enslave those Coal-use industries, and the customers who depend upon them, into the service of the oil industry through the mandated Geologic Sequestration of our valuable Carbon Dioxide in nearly-depleted natural petroleum reservoirs.