In a number of earlier reports, including, for instance, and as accessible via:
Texaco Recycles CO2 to Methanol & Methane | Research & Development | News; "United States Patent 4,523,981 - Means and Method for Reducing Carbon Dioxide to Provide a Product; 1985; Assignee: Texaco, Incorporated, NY; Abstract: A process for reducing carbon dioxide to ... methanol (and/or) methane"; and:
Texaco Recycles More CO2 to Methanol and Methane | Research & Development | News; "United States Patent 4,609,451 - Means for Reducing Carbon Dioxide to Provide a Product; 1986; Assignee: Texaco Incorporated, NY; Abstract: A process and apparatus for reducing carbon dioxide to at least one useful product (wherein are included) means for providing hydrogen ions from the water"; we have documented that the old Texaco Corporation had been, prior to their assimilation by Chevron, at work developing very real, and practical, technologies which would, if implemented, have enabled us to start converting our unjustly disparaged Carbon Dioxide into a variety of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels.
Herein, via the initial link in this dispatch, we see that one of the co-inventors named in United States Patents 4,523,981 and 4,609,451 had been at work on his own, singly developing, for Texaco, even more Carbon Dioxide recycling technology.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"US Patent 4,608,132 - Means and Method for the Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide
Date: August, 1986
Inventor: Anthony Sammells, IL
Assignee: Texaco Incorporated, NY
Abstract: Apparatus and method for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to a product includes a housing divided into two sections by membrane. An electrolyte solution including a non-aqueous electrolyte dimethylformamide and a supporting electrolyte is provided to the two sections of the housing. A ... cathode is located in one section of the housing while an anode is located in the other section. Carbon dioxide is provided to the section having the cathode. A direct voltage is provided to the cathode and to the anode so that a current can pass and cooperate in a reaction between the carbon dioxide and the electrolyte solution to provide a product.
The apparatus and method ... reduces carbon dioxide to either formate, oxalate, formate with formaldehyde or formate with oxalate."
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We understand that such a product slate, generated by this particular CO2-recycling process, might not seem as exciting as the liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels produced via the CO2-recycling processes of the other Texaco Patents, 4,523,981 and 4,609,451, cited above.
As in: England Improves Coal Liquid Hydrogenation with Formic Acid | Research & Development | News, however, the Formate products, of the subject USP 4,608,132 technology, can be utilized to good effect in other industrial processes, including some directed towards the hydrogenation and liquefaction of Coal.
Further, as we've previously noted, in reports of similar Carbon Dioxide recycling technology, Formaldehyde can be utilized in the composition of some types of plastic "resins", wherein the Carbon Dioxide consumed in the synthesis of the Formaldehyde would be forever, and productively, "sequestered".
Even further, we must note that this Texaco technology seems, to us, to be another version of the CO2-H2O electrolytic processes described in other of our reports, such as:
More USDOE CO2 "Syntrolysis" | Research & Development | News; concerning the "Co-Electrolysis of Steam and Carbon Dioxide for Production of Syngas", and, which further records the USDOE's development of: "Syntrolysis ... a process developed by the Idaho National Laboratory that (consumes) carbon dioxide while creating synthesis gas ... used to produce synthetic fuels", and:
Chicago Recycles CO2 to Methanol | Research & Development | News; concerning: "United States Patent 4,609,441 - Electrochemical Reduction of Aqueous Carbon Dioxide to Methanol";
wherein the co-electrolysis of Carbon Dioxide and Water can be structured so as to generate, instead of formic acid-based products, a selection of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels.
In any case, it is again demonstrated herein that:
Carbon Dioxide, as it arises in only a small way, relative to natural sources of emission, such as volcanoes, from our varied and productive uses of Coal, rather than being a dangerous pollutant we must somehow extort our vital Coal industries to get rid of, is, instead, a valuable raw material resource.
Carbon Dioxide can be profitably reclaimed and productively recycled in the synthesis and manufacture of a variety of useful and needed commodities.