Yesterday, we sent you information concerning: "US Patent Application Number: US2009/0145843A1", labeled as a "Method for Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emission and Water Contamination Potential while Increasing Product Yields from Carbon Gasification and Energy Production", which was submitted in June of last year by a former Gulf Oil scientist, one Paul Ahner, now resident in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and, which described a process wherein Carbon Dioxide could be reacted with Coal, or with any hot Carbon, and thus be converted into Carbon Monoxide.
Such Carbon Monoxide, when combined in appropriate ratio with Hydrogen, would comprise a synthesis gas suitable for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons; and, the complete process would, as Ahner states it in his Patent Application, thereby "simultaneously reduce carbon dioxide emissions and increase the product yield of clean fuels".
We have also previously reported on the Carbon conversion work of the old Cities Service Company, perhaps better known as "CITGO", which was, before it's acquisition by the national oil company of Venezuela, coincidentally headquartered in Tulsa.
Interestingly, we see herein that, 33 years ago, Cities Service acquired a Carbon Dioxide recycling technology of it's own very similar in concept to the one described more recently by Ahner.
Comment follows excerpts from the link to:
"United States Patent 4.040,976 - Process of Treating Carbonaceous Material with Carbon Dioxide
Date: August, 1977
Inventor: Marvin Greene, NJ
Assignee: Cities Service Company, OK
Abstract: A mixture of carbon dioxide and a carbonaceous material, such as coal, is rapidly heated in a reactor, giving a gaseous effluent comprising carbon monoxide. If hydrogen is added with the feed stream, a CO--H2 mixture is produced.
Claims: A non-catalytic process of reacting solid carbonaceous material with carbon dioxide to produce a carbon monoxide-containing gas, comprising: contacting the carbonaceous material with carbon dioxide,
(And) A non-catalytic process of making a synthesis gas mixture comprising CO and H2, the steps comprising: contacting a solid carbonaceous material with a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen ... .
(And) wherein ... the material is coal ... (or) is selected from the group consisting of coal, lignite, humates, peat, oil shale, charcoal, coal char, sawdust ... .
Background: This invention concerns the reaction of carbonaceous material with carbon dioxide. More particularly, it concerns the non-catalytic reaction of carbonaceous material with carbon dioxide to form a carbon monoxide-containing gas. If hydrogen is added to the reaction mixture, or if there is available hydrogen in the carbonaceous material, a synthesis gas, comprising carbon monoxide and hydrogen, is formed.
In another embodiment of the invention, a synthesis gas comprising carbon monoxide and hydrogen is formed when the carbonaceous material contains sufficient hydrogen, so that hydrogen is liberated from the carbonaceous material during the reaction with carbon dioxide. Alternatively, a stream of hydrogen can be added to the reactor so as to furnish hydrogen in the reactor effluent or to react further with intermediate reaction products to form other reaction products, such as methane."
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First of all, we must remind you, such "a synthesis gas comprising carbon monoxide and hydrogen" could be catalytically condensed via, for one example out of several, the Fischer-Tropsch process into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Further, if Methane, as herein, can be produced by reacting Carbon Dioxide with hot Coal, then that Methane can then be reacted with even more Carbon Dioxide, in bi-reforming and tri-reforming reactions, to synthesize higher hydrocarbons, including liquid fuels.
In that regard, we remind you as well of our recent report of a West Virginia University Master of Science Thesis, completed in 2001 by Mahesh V. Iyer, and entitled "New Catalysts for Syngas Production from Carbon Dioxide and Methane"; and, of our reports concerning the development of CO2-CH4 tri-reforming technology, by scientists, such as Chunsan Song and Craig Grimes, at Penn State University.
Even further, in coming days we will submit additional documentation, from the USDOE itself, of other of our earlier reports, wherein it was demonstrated that Methane could serve in the conversion of Coal into liquid hydrocarbons.
Moreover, in this US Patent 4.040,976, as per our above excerpts, inventor Marvin Greene suggests that "the carbonaceous material" might itself contain "sufficient hydrogen, so that hydrogen is liberated from the carbonaceous material during the reaction with carbon dioxide".
That might be true of wet Coal, wherein Hydrogen would be generated through reactions between Steam and the hot Carbon.
It would also likely be true of botanic Cellulose produced by photosynthesis from Carbon Dioxide and Water, a renewable hydrocarbon feedstock which could be blended with the Coal, and which would thereby provide an additional route of, somewhat indirect, Carbon Dioxide recycling; as noted in the Disclosure, in it's provision for use of renewable materials such as "charcoal" and "sawdust", along with Coal.
If additional Hydrogen is required, however, we submit that it would make much, much more economic sense to electrolyze any needed Hydrogen from the water in one of Coal Country's many rivers, using hydroelectric power generated by the water in those rivers, and to use that Hydrogen to recycle Carbon Dioxide into useful hydrocarbons, as per the Cities Service invention disclosed herein, than it would to, all at Coal Country's expense, through mandated Geologic Sequestration, collect all of our effluent CO2 and pipe it all the way to West Texas, to be stuffed down a leaky old oil well.
Sounds a lot better than the Coal industry economic strangulation of Cap & Trade taxation, too.