United States Patent Application: 0100213046
We have many times documented for you the development, by Penn State University scientists, of a Carbon Dioxide recycling technology most often referred to as "tri-reforming", wherein Carbon Dioxide can be reacted with Methane, which can itself be synthesized, via the century-old Sabatier process, from Carbon Dioxide, and made thereby to produce valuable hydrocarbons.
One Penn State scientist, Craig Grimes, whom we are fond of quoting, knowing of the true potentials for recycling Carbon Dioxide, has said, of the proposals for mandated Geologic Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide in leaky old oil wells, that "Burying CO2 is ridiculous".
We have also documented the development, by scientists in Switzerland, Israel and Singapore, of technologies wherein Carbon Dioxide can be made to react with Methane and/or Water, and to thereby synthesize hydrocarbons, via the action of relatively low-power electrical diodes, which are sometimes referred to as "nanotubes".
Our USDOE Sandia, Los Alamos and Brookhaven National Laboratories have, as we've also documented, been at work on similar and related technology which utilizes environmental energy, i.e., sunlight, in photocatalytic processes that thus, in general theme if not specifics, mimic natural photosynthesis.
Well, as it happens, Penn State and Craig Grimes, and some of his colleagues there, apparently not content with just their catalyzed tri-reforming technology for recycling Carbon Dioxide, have developed their own version of electrical diode-enhanced Carbon Dioxide conversion, and have very recently applied for a United States Patent on their particular process.
Comment follows excerpts from the above link to:
"US Patent Application 20100213046 - Nanotube ... Photocatalytic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide
Date: August, 2010
Inventors: Craig Grimes, et. al., PA
Assignee: The Penn State Research Foundation
Abstract: Nitrogen-doped titania nanotubes exhibiting catalytic activity on exposure to any one or more of ultraviolet, visible, and/or infrared radiation, or combinations thereof are disclosed. The nanotube arrays may be co-doped with one or more nonmetals and may further include co-catalyst nanoparticles. Also, methods are disclosed for use of nitrogen-doped titania nanotubes in catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide alone or in admixture with hydrogen-containing gases such as water vapor and/or other reactants as may be present or desirable into products such as hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon-containing products, hydrogen and hydrogen-containing products, carbon monoxide and other carbon-containing products, or combinations thereof.
Claims: A method for photocatalytically converting carbon dioxide into reaction products comprising any one or more of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon-containing products, hydrogen and hydrogen-containing products, carbon monoxide and other carbon-containing products, or combinations thereof, comprising:a. exposing a reactant gas comprising carbon dioxide to a photocatalyst and electromagnetic radiation to generate the reaction products ... and wherein the photocatalyst is a nitrogen-doped titania nanotube array ... .
Disclosed herein are nitrogen-doped titania nanotube arrays, methods of manufacturing the arrays, and processes for catalytically converting carbon dioxide to value added reaction products."
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We leave technical discussion to those more knowledgeable and astute.
But, clearly, we have herein a technology that would enable us to convert "carbon dioxide into ... any one or more of hydrocarbons".
And, the technology exists in north central Pennsylvania.
If West Virginia is, ultimately, forced by law to collect her effluent CO2 and pipe it somewhere, then let's send it up there instead of all the way down to West Texas.