We're sending along in this dispatch some information concerning the productive recycling of Carbon Dioxide we attempted and intended to get to you quite a long time ago. So, some of it might seem redundant.
But, we feel that it's all pretty important stuff, and we wanted to make certain it was clear and understood.
First, nearly two years ago, as a part of our series concerning the development of Carbon Dioxide recycling technology by the United States Department of Defense, and it's contractors, we submitted a report concerning the issuance of a United States Patent to the United States Navy, for a process that would convert Carbon Dioxide, reclaimed from the environment, into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
That report is accessible in the West Virginia Coal Association's web site R&D library via:
US Navy Recycles CO2 to Liquid Fuel | Research & Development.
At the time we submitted that dispatch, the official US Patent and Trademark Office web site was undergoing one of it's occasional "outages", and we were compelled to include, in that report, a link to a secondary site that publishes patent records.
Herein, via the initial link in this dispatch, with some additional links, reportage and comment following, we present the official US Government record of:
"United States Patent 7,420,004 - Process and System for 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.
(Note that process can be "land based". We suggest some US Coal Country "fossil fuel-free", energy sources in appended notes and comments.)
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 a process of reacting the carbon dioxide with the hydrogen to produce for intermediary methanol production is combined with Fischer Tropsch synthesis to produce said hydrocarbons from said carbon dioxide and said hydrogen.
The system ... wherein said carbon dioxide recovery unit is selected from the group consisting of: (a) a partial vacuum degassing process used during the pumping of seawater from any depth; (b) an extraction process for recovering carbon dioxide from seawater; (c) an absorption process for recovering carbon dioxide from air; and (d) any other process for recovering carbon dioxide from air or water; or (e) any combination thereof.
(Note: We address "carbon dioxide recovery" via an additional link and report, following below.)
The system ... 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.
(Numerous options exist for "hydrogen production", and we refer you, especially, to one earlier report:
USDOE Algae Make Hydrogen for Coal and CO2 Hydrogenation | Research & Development; concerning: "Photosynthetic Hydrogen and Oxygen Production by Green Algae; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Abstract: Photosynthesis research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is focused on hydrogen and oxygen production by green algae in the context of its potential as a renewable fuel and chemical feed stock";
wherein it's seen that Hydrogen can be produced by an Algae-based system designed to "scrub" Carbon Dioxide-containing exhaust gas streams.)
The system ... wherein the energy required for said hydrogen production unit is provided by nuclear reactor electricity; nuclear reactor waste heat conversion; ocean thermal energy conversion; any other non fossil fuel source such as waves, tide, wind, or ocean current energy; or combinations thereof.
The system ... wherein said Fischer Tropsch synthesis unit uses a catalyst selected from the group consisting of: (a) metals selected from the group consisting of iron, cobalt, and nickel, and combinations thereof; (b) metal oxides selected from the group consisting of iron oxide, cobalt oxide, nickel oxide, ruthenium oxide, and combinations thereof; (c) support type material selected from the group consisting of as alumina or zeolites; (d) supported metals, metal oxides, mixed metals, or mixed metal oxides; and (e) any combination thereof.
(Nothing too exotic or too expensive, in other words, is needed. And, again, we remind you that "zeolites", which are common natural and synthetic minerals, are at the heart of ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) process, wherein Methanol, posited by ExxonMobil to be made from Coal, among other things, is converted into standard Gasoline.)
The system ... wherein the hydrocarbons (produced) are liquid hydrocarbons."
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Quite plainly, our own United States Navy and our own United States Patent and Trademark Office affirm:
By starting with Carbon Dioxide and Water as the only raw materials, we can make "liquid hydrocarbons".
As to where we might get the Carbon Dioxide, Columbia University, in New York, has some suggestions that could very well tie in with how we get the US Navy's "non fossil fuel source" of energy to drive the conversion process itself, as seen in:
"United States Patent: 7833328 - Scrubber for Capturing Carbon Dioxide from Air
Date: November, 2010
Inventors: Klaus Lackner, NY, and Dennis Wright, AZ
Assignee: Columbia University, NYC
Abstract: The present invention is directed to methods for carbon dioxide from air, which comprises exposing solvent covered surfaces to air streams where the airflow is kept laminar, or close to the laminar regime. The invention also provides for an apparatus, which is a laminar scrubber, comprising solvent covered surfaces situated such that they can be exposed to air streams such that the airflow is kept laminar.
Claims: A scrubber apparatus for capturing carbon dioxide from open air, comprising: substantially horizontal concentric tubes each including first and second ends and surfaces there between and including a center tube axis, wherein said first and second ends are not closed so as to allow a flow of open air to pass through the tubes and directly contact the surfaces; A mechanism for continuously rotating each tube around its center tube axis; A pump in fluid communication with a source of carbon dioxide solvent; A conduit in fluid communication with the pump for introducing the solvent to the surface of the tubes via one of the first and second ends; and A catch tray for collecting the solvent flowing from one of the first and second ends.
An apparatus ... wherein the solvent is adapted to remove carbon dioxide from open air under ambient conditions.
An apparatus ... wherein the solvent is a hydroxide solution ... .
(The "hydroxide solution" is cheap and easy to get. Various Sodium and Potassium Hydroxides are the typical main ingredients in many common brands of drain cleaners.)
Background and Field: The present invention relates generally to the field of extractors, including those that work to extract carbon dioxide. The present invention relates to carbon dioxide (CO2) removal under ambient conditions from the open air without heating or cooling the air.
Extracting carbon dioxide from ambient air would make it possible to use carbon based fuels and deal with the greenhouse gas emissions after the fact. (It) is possible to remove carbon dioxide from air in order to compensate for an equally sized emission elsewhere and at different times.
Summary: The present invention is directed to methods for removing carbon dioxide from air."
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First of all, we have already documented for you that the capture of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is a viable proposition, relative to saddling power generation facilities with expensive, energy-sapping CO2 collection devices. An example of our reportage on that issue would include:
CO2 Air Capture Practical - U of Colorado | Research & Development' concerning: "An idealized assessment of the economics of air capture of carbon dioxide in mitigation policy; University of Colorado; 2009; The simple assessment finds that even at a relatively high cost per ton of carbon, the costs of air capture are directly comparable to the costs of stabilization using other means."
So, in other words, it wouldn't cost us any more to snare the Carbon Dioxide out of thin air at a centralized and concentrated installation, than it would to net it piecemeal with hugely-expensive add-on equipment at each and every electric power generation plant in US Coal Country.
And, if we were to think about using, as our own US Navy suggests, "wind ... energy" to drive the process of converting Carbon Dioxide into their "liquid hydrocarbons", then we could site the entire CO2 collection and conversion assembly atop some of the higher hills and mountains in US Coal Country. And, as seen in:
Mountaineer Wind Energy Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; wherein is described the: Mountaineer Wind Energy Center - a wind farm on Backbone Mountain in Preston and Tucker counties (West Virginia, which) generates enough electricity to power approximately 20,000 homes";
we have areas of high natural air currents, in US Coal Country, which could both provide a site where the wind itself would bring plenty of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide into the atmospheric CO2 collection device specified by Columbia University in their "United States Patent 7.833.328; and, as well, as in our US Navy's United States Patent 7,420,004, generate the needed "hydrogen", for the recycling of Carbon Dioxide, by using an energy "source that is fossil fuel-free, such as wind or wave energy".
And, such a Hydrogen generation process could be made more efficient by a technology such as that disclosed by our own USDOE in:
USDOE Makes Hydrogen by Using Sulfur Dioxide | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,244,794 - Hydrogen Production by the Decomposition of Water; 1981; Assignee: The United States of America; Abstract: Producing) hydrogen from water (in a system that) employs a combined electrolytical-thermochemical sulfuric acid process. Additionally, high purity sulfuric acid can be produced in the process. Water and SO2 react in (an) electrolyzer ... so that hydrogen is produced at the cathode and sulfuric acid is produced at the anode";
wherein a water solution of Sulfur Dioxide, as we might obtain from a Coal-fired power plant smoke stack scrubber, both reduces the electrical energy required for the electrolytic production of Hydrogen from Water, and, coincidentally, generates commercially-valuable, by-product Sulfuric Acid.
Furthermore, all of the foregoing might just be seen as the enabling components of an overall, practical Carbon Dioxide recycling process, as we previously documented in:
USDOE 1976 Atmospheric CO2 to Methanol | Research & Development; concerning the much earlier: "United States Patent 3,959,094 - Electrolytic Synthesis of Methanol from CO2; 1976; Assignee: The USA as represented by the USDOE; Abstract: A method and system for synthesizing methanol from the CO2 in air using electric power. The CO2 is absorbed by a solution of KOH to form K2CO3 (as specified in the above 'United States Patent 7,833,328 - Scrubber for Capturing Carbon Dioxide from Air") which is electrolyzed to produce methanol, a liquid hydrocarbon fuel".
It's all there:
A complete technology which can use environmentally-derived energy to, first, extract Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere itself, anywhere a suitable source of environmental energy might be exploited, and, then, to convert that Carbon Dioxide into "methanol" and other "liquid hydrocarbons".
Is anyone, anywhere, still seriously considering or discussing, much less promoting, exploitive taxation schemes like Cap & Trade; or, con-game scams like the mandated Geologic Sequestration of our precious Carbon Dioxide in leaky old oil wells, so that Big Oil, all at our expense, can squeegee out a few last drops of natural petroleum?
If so: Why?
And: How is it our Coal Country public media are, so far, letting "them" get away with it?