From the good folks who more recently brought us the Gulf Coast oil disaster, we submit yet more clear, United States Government-certified, statement of the fact that Carbon Dioxide can be recycled, "reformed", through reactions with Methane, and made thereby to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
In disclosing their process for accomplishing that transmutation, British Petroleum confirms the dirty little secret, which we have previously documented for you, and which is always left undisclosed by outspoken proponents of "America's Clean Energy Alternative", i.e., natural gas; and, that is:
As found in geologic deposits, natural gas is always contaminated with at least some, and sometimes a lot, of Carbon Dioxide.
Producers of America's Clean Energy Alternative, if the amount of Carbon Dioxide contamination affects the combustion properties of their natural gas, routinely strip CO2 from their run-of-well product and, without fanfare, simply vent that CO2 to the atmosphere.
Herein, in confirmation of technology disclosed in other, earlier of our reports, we see that British Petroleum, too, has established a technology which would enable the reaction of natural gas Methane with it's entrained Carbon Dioxide, to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
The language, phrasing and structure of the full Disclosure is, like many other examples of Carbon conversion technology we have brought to your attention, convoluted and unnecessarily complex.
Should you open and examine the full document, don't be misled by the obfuscation.
Close scrutiny will reveal that, for instance, when they utilize vaporous phrases like "vapor components", they are referring, as they finally get around to specifying in the full body of the Disclosure, to a "gas (that) has a methane content of at least 75 mole percent".
Also, keep in mind that the chemistry herein is what's important, not the sources of the Carbon Dioxide and the Methane - as we emphasize, following relatively brief excerpts from the enclosed link to:
"United States Patent 7,168,265 - Processing of Natural Gas into Liquid Products
Date: January, 2007
Inventor: Michael Briscoe, et. al., Texas
Assignee: BP Corporation North America, Illinois
Abstract: An integrated process for producing LNG and GTL products is provided, wherein a CO2-containing natural gas feed to an LNG production zone is first pre-treated to separate at least a portion of the CO2 therefrom, and the resulting CO2 stream obtained thereby is then directed to a GTL production zone and utilized to make GTL products that include methanol and/or methanol derivatives.
Claims: An integrated process for producing LNG products ... and conversion of natural gas into GTL products that include methanol in a GTL Phase production zone from a natural gas ... and CO2, the process comprising the steps of: pre-treating at least a first portion of the natural gas to separate at least a portion of the CO2 therefrom and produce a natural gas feed having reduced CO2 content and a stream rich in CO2; converting the natural gas feed into an LNG product in the LNG Phase; converting a second portion of the natural gas to a synthesis gas by steam methane reformation; and reacting the stream rich in CO2 with at least a portion of the synthesis gas in the GTL Phase to produce methanol.
(And, wherein is further comprised) feeding the stream rich in CO2 with the second portion of the natural gas such that the stream rich in CO2 is mixed therewith prior to formation of the synthesis gas.
(And, wherein is further comprised) feeding the stream rich in CO2 into the one or more of the (extracted)natural gas (hydrocarbon) vapor components such that the stream rich in CO2 is commingled with the vapor components prior to formation of the synthesis gas."
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In sum: We can react Carbon Dioxide with both Methane and, as noted above in the reference to forming a "synthesis gas by steam methane reformation", plain old H2O; and then, as in "reacting the stream rich in CO2 with at least a portion of the synthesis gas in the GTL Phase", we can react that synthesis gas, made by, essentially, the "tri-reforming" of Methane, Carbon Dioxide and Steam, with even more Carbon Dioxide, and, thereby, "produce methanol".
Methanol, we remind you, can, via, for one example, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) technology, be further converted into Gasoline.
And, it can also serve as the raw material for the manufacture of a number of very-useful plastics, wherein the Carbon Dioxide consumed in the Methanol's synthesis would be chemically and securely, and productively and profitably, sequestered.
We further remind you, that:
Methane, which can, as herein, be reacted with Carbon Dioxide to synthesize, via generation of syngas, the valuable Methanol, can itself be synthesized, via the 1912 Nobel Prize winning Sabatier process now being further refined by NASA, all as we have thoroughly documented for you, from Carbon Dioxide.
Again: 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.
And, as herein officiallly, and as yet again, our United States Government, as well as, obviously, the petroleum industry, knows that to be true.
We can use Carbon Dioxide right where it's generated, or as extracted anywhere from the atmosphere itself, to synthesize liquid fuels and plastics manufacturing raw materials.
We shouldn't, through Cap & Trade taxation, punish our vital Coal-use industries because they produce a relatively little bit of it for us.
Nor should we, through mandated insecure Geologic Sequestration in leaky old natural petroleum reservoirs, enslave our vital Coal-use industries, and the citizens reliant on those industries, into the service of Big Oil, and his secondary recovery, his scrounging, of last drops of petroleum from those natural reservoirs.