http://www.utpb.edu/media/
We earlier attempted to make report of the information we enclose herein, so please forgive what might seem tedious repetition. But, our previous efforts were curtailed by what we can only characterize as the better social judgment of others.
We are trying our best, as all seem to desire, to put a rose-colored lens on the flashlight with which we illuminate this particular dark and dusty trail.
We've made several previous reports of our own USDOE's development of a Carbon Dioxide recycling technology that is so effective that not only has it been given a name, but, that name, "Green Freedom", has also been trademarked.
A fairly recent report concerning that CO2-recycling technology is now accessible on the West Virginia Coal Association's web site via the link:
USDOE "Green Freedom" CO2 Recycling | Research & Development; wherein we provided discussion of: "Green Freedom (TM) - A Concept for Producing Carbon-Neutral Synthetic Fuels; 2007; Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM; We have developed a low-risk, transformational concept, called Green Freedom (TM), for large scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and chemicals from air and water (which) utilizes carbon-neutral power to recover carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; split water into hydrogen; and, convert hydrogen and carbon dioxide into synthetic fuels and organic chemicals."
In other of our reports concerning the "Green Freedom" (TM) CO2-recycling technology, we made dark note of the seeming participation of the petroleum industry in its development.
We even suggested, with nearly-immediate cries of outraged protest from at least one sensitive academic mouthpiece for the Big Oil contingent down in Texas, that such technology could well be behind the ridiculous proposition that, at great cost, the generators of Coal-based electricity be compelled by law to, all at their and their customers' expense, collect their effluent Carbon Dioxide and then ship it, post-paid, down to West Texas for the purposes of "geologic sequestration" in leaky old, nearly-depleted, Permian Basin, as the West Texas natural petroleum reservoir is known, oil wells.
We won't again document herein that Carbon Dioxide is an effective and efficient scrubbing agent for what is known in the trade as "Enhanced Oil Recovery", or, more often, just "EOR", wherein nearly-depleted geologic formations, that once contained oil, are "flooded" with Carbon Dioxide in a way that mobilizes the last petroleum dregs clinging to the rocks and helps bring it to the surface.
By being compelled to, all at our expense, through mandated Geologic Sequestration, which might be made to appear as a more attractive alternative to the stick of Cap and Trade taxation, collect and ship our effluent Carbon Dioxide down to Texas for such purposes, we would, in effect, be subsidizing both the oil industry's petroleum production and, thus, their profits.
Furthermore, once the petroleum reservoirs were thus flooded with better-than-free Carbon Dioxide, we had the temerity to suggest, Big Oil could start withdrawing that CO2 and, through the "Green Freedom" (TM), or similar, technology, begin synthesizing even more liquid hydrocarbons which they could sell, at additional profit, back to us.
We must, of course, have been wrong about all of that.
And, we apologize.
We're certain that the Green Freedom (TM) Carbon Dioxide recycling technology will be made freely-available to one and all once the final polish has been put on it for our United States Department of Energy by their close, collaborative partners in the development, and now the registered co-owners, of it:
The University of Texas Permian Basin.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"Green Freedom (TM); Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Texas Permian Basin
November, 2009
Los Alamos National Laboratory developed Green Freedom as the shortest path to affordable, large-scale, clean, carbon-neutral, gasoline and jet fuel production.
As developed, its "typical" plant could fulfill the liquid fuel needs of a city the size of Louisville, KY, or Albuquerque, NM.
(What about Charleston, WV, or Pittsburgh, PA?)
Ironically this practical but transformational concept depends on low-risk technology.
Almost all the technologies already exist today and operate at large scale.
Furthermore a close cousin to the 'new' technology also already exists and is widely used today.
As such, Green Freedom is free of scaling limitations and most of its plant could be designed and built today because the principle focus would be on the unique integration of known technologies rather than their development.
Green Freedom works by extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and hydrogen from water to serve as feedstocks. Depending on the desired end product(s), there are converted, emissions-free, to fuel by any of a number of established methods, such as Fischer-Tropsch or through a methanol-to-gasoline based process.
At the heart of Green Freedom is a new electro-chemical process that reduces the energy required to capture and recover production quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 96%.
As a bonus, it also yields large quantities of pure hydrogen gas as a by-product, which is also needed by Green Freedom for fuel production. This is the breakthrough that makes Green Freedom affordable.
Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Texas Permian Basin are working under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to develop, prove and integrate the Green Freedom (TM) technology ... .
We are currently performing 'bench scale' testing and will transition into a pilot plant located in West Texas.
If the transition through pilot plant tests continues successfully, Green Freedom offers a timely, if not the most promising, concept for using low risk technologies to provide security and economic stability for US energy supplies.
Green Freedom Trademarked - Los Alamos National Laboratory & University of Texas of the Permian Basin. "
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Now, truth to tell, they do provide some current (2009) projected costs for "gasoline and jet fuel" made from CO2 via the Green Freedom (TM) technology; and, they aren't as attractive as the prices projected for the same products made from Carbon Dioxide via alternative USDOE technologies, such as described in:
USDOE $2.00 Gasoline from Carbon Dioxide | Research & Development; concerning: "Fuels from Microalgae: Technology Status, Potential, and Research Requirements; 1986; Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden, CO".
However, though not reflected in our excerpts, energy is one of the significant cost contributors to the Green Freedom (TM) CO2-recycling process; and, the USDOE and the University of Texas do suggest wind and hydro power as alternatives that would provide lower-cost and Carbon-free energy for the process.
Furthermore, it wouldn't, as would the USDOE's "Microalgae" technology, require minimum quantities of sunlight to be effective.
We could site it anywhere we have reliable breezes or running water. And, as we've made reference, in other reports, to:
Mountaineer Wind Energy Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "Mountaineer Wind Energy Center is a wind farm ... in Preston and Tucker counties (West Virginia)"; and, in:
Ground broken for new hydro plant - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -; "ST. MARYS, W.Va.-- Construction is under way on a $276 million hydroelectric plant at the Willow Island Locks and Dam";
we do have quite a few Coal Country potentials available to us for the generation of site-specific, Carbon-free energy that could be directed into the operation of a "Green Freedom" (TM) CO2-recycling operation.
Furthermore, a cost is, for whatever reason, since the Texans expect to get it for free from us in pipelines, assigned to the collection of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere.
And, although, as we have documented in other reports, such as:
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; 2009; University of Colorado, Boulder, CO";
and, with other, similar, reports to follow, it certainly seems feasible to extract CO2 from the atmosphere itself, for the purposes of conversion into hydrocarbons, there might be even better, much more profitable options available to us for the direct capture of CO2 from power plants themselves, as a paying proposition, rather than as an onerous taxation-forced penalty.
That, especially, since, as the USDOE and Texas report, Green Freedom (TM) "is free of scaling limitations", and, thus, presumably, could be sized and placed anywhere there was a ready supply of both Carbon Dioxide and environmental energy; perhaps, as above, near the Willow Island Locks and Dam in West Virginia, which lie in very close proximity to a Coal-fired power plant, also at Willow Island.