United States Patent Application: 0100200418
In a way perhaps evocative of West Virginia, the main campus of George Washington University lies smack dab between Pennsylvania and Virginia - not states, but, Avenues - in the very heart of Washington, DC.
It is within walking distance of the White House.
And, because of work at George Washington University, GWU, the aroma of cherry blossoms wafting in through open Oval Office windows some coming spring might not be diluted with quite as much CO2.
Like the "Syntrolysis" technology being developed, as we've documented, and as we will be further documenting, at the USDOE's Idaho National Laboratory, and other places, a GWU scientist herein informs us that we can electrolyze water solutions of Carbon Dioxide, as, we submit, we might obtain from various smoke stack or atmospheric "scrubbers", and thereby generate a high-energy reactive mixture of Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide, which we all have come to know as hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
Moreover, in a way similar to the related technologies, labeled as "Green Freedom", being developed, again as we've documented, and as we will further document, at the USDOE's Sandia and Los Alamos Laboratories, GWU posits that environmental energy can be harnessed, in what we submit to be a form of "artificial photosynthesis", to the task of converting Carbon Dioxide into such hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
Further, also similar to other like processes we have brought to your attention, GWU suggests the use of "thermal energy recovered" from some generically-labeled "exhaust gasses" to help, along with sunlight, drive the needed reactions.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"US Patent Application 20100200418 - Electrosynthesis of Energetic Molecules
Date: August, 2010
Inventor: Stuart Licht, Virginia
Assignee: The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Abstract: A process for the production of energetically rich compounds comprising: using externally supplied thermal energy to heat an electrolyzable compound to a temperature greater than the ambient temperature; generating electricity from a solar electrical photovoltaic component; subjecting the heated electrolyzable compound to electrolysis with the solar generated electricity to generate an energetically rich electrolytic product.
Claims: A process for the production of energetically rich compounds comprising:using externally supplied thermal energy to heat an electrolyzable compound to a temperature greater than the ambient temperature; generating electricity from a solar electrical photovoltaic component; (and) subjecting the heated electrolyzable compound to electrolysis with the solar generated electricity to generate an energetically rich electrolytic product.
(And) wherein the electrolyzable compound comprises carbon dioxide.
(And) wherein the externally supplied thermal energy comprises solar energy.
(And/or) wherein the externally supplied thermal energy comprises thermal energy from exhaust gasses.
(And) wherein the energetically rich electrolytic product includes carbon compounds with energy greater than carbon dioxide.
(And) wherein the energetically rich electrolytic product comprises carbon monoxide, and the process further comprises combining the carbon monoxide with hydrogen to form alcohols ... ."
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Licht's full Disclosure is much more informative and enlightening; and, it deserves much more exposition than we are herein able to give it.
He describes in detail, for instance, the "STEP (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo) process or STEP driven process" which we have previously, and will further, from other sources, document; and, wherein solar energy alone, in a way similar to the Green Freedom concept, is posited to drive the process of collecting CO2 and converting it into more useful products.
Licht's innovation seems to lie in the use of other forms of energy, in addition to Solar, to help the process along, and we abbreviate our excerpts so that those points can be summarized and emphasized:
Using environmental energy in combination with "thermal energy from exhaust gasses", we can convert "carbon dioxide" into "alcohols".
Unless, of course, we would rather our vital Coal-use industries, and their customers, were taxed into impoverishment via Cap & Trade legislation, or, through mandated Geologic Sequestration in leaky old oil wells, enslaved into the service of Big Oil and his secondary petroleum profiteering.