A few months ago, we made report, now available on the West Virginia Coal Association's web site, via the link: US Navy Seeks CO2 Recycling Patent; of "US Patent Application 2008/0051478A1 - Synthesis of Hydrocarbons via Catalytic Reduction of CO2".
The US Government, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, will be assigned the patent rights to that technology for converting Carbon Dioxide into liquid hydrocarbon fuels, if and when the patent is issued.
Herein, via the initial link in this dispatch, we see that the US Navy's Carbon Dioxide recycling technology, as disclosed in that application, is only an advancement on similar and related technology that had already been established, by one of that application's named inventors.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 7,420,004 - Producing Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels
Date: September, 2008
Inventors: Dennis Hardy and Timothy Coffey, VA
Assignee: The USA, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
Abstract: A process for producing synthetic hydrocarbons that reacts carbon dioxide, obtained from seawater or air, and hydrogen obtained from water, with a catalyst in a chemical process such as reverse water gas shift combined with Fischer Tropsch synthesis. The hydrogen is produced by nuclear reactor electricity, nuclear waste heat conversion, ocean thermal energy conversion, or any other source that is fossil fuel-free, such as wind or wave energy. The process can be either land based or sea based.
Claims: A system for producing synthetic hydrocarbons, comprising: (a) a unit for recovering carbon dioxide from seawater, air, or a combination thereof; (b) a unit for producing hydrogen from water; and (c) a Fischer Tropsch synthesis unit wherein ... methanol production is combined with Fischer Tropsch synthesis to produce said hydrocarbons from said carbon dioxide and said hydrogen.
(And) wherein said carbon dioxide recovery unit is selected from the group consisting of: ... a process for recovering carbon dioxide from air; and (d) any other process for recovering carbon dioxide from air or water; or any combination thereof.
(And) wherein said hydrogen production unit is selected from the group consisting of: (a) an electrolysis process; (b) a thermolysis process; (c) a thermochemical process; and (d) any combination thereof.
(And) wherein the energy required for said hydrogen production unit is provided by ... non fossil fuel source such as waves, tide, wind, or ocean current energy; or combinations thereof... .
Field: The present invention relates to hydrocarbon production and, more specifically, to a process to make synthetic liquid hydrocarbons from carbon dioxide, obtained from seawater or air, and hydrogen from water without the use of fossil fuels in any step of the process."
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And, there you have it, from two branches - the Patent Office and the Navy - of our US Government:
We can mix "carbon dioxide, obtained from ... air" with "hydrogen from water", where both components can be collected and processed "without the use of fossil fuels in any step of the process", by utilizing energy harvested from the "wind" and "waves", and thereby "make synthetic liquid hydrocarbons".
Note, as detailed in the full Disclosure, that Methanol, which can be used in the synthesis of Gasoline or permanently consumed, with it's chemically-entrained CO2, in the making of plastics, is an intermediate product of the system.
Moreover, Methanol is an efficient absorbent of Carbon Dioxide, and can be used in systems that "scrub" CO2 from the atmosphere or exhaust streams.
Carbon Dioxide, as herein officially, is a valuable raw material resource which can be productively and profitably harvested and recycled.
Why, in the world, is there now any time, and press ink, being wasted on such counter-productive, and even harmful and predatory, inanities as Cap & Trade and Geologic Sequestration