As our own United States Government again recently confirmed, as seen in:
August 2011, CO2-to-Gasoline US Patent Awarded | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel Materials Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide; August, 2011; Siemens AG, Germany; Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method for utilizing CO2 waste comprising recovering carbon dioxide (and) producing hydrogen using a renewable energy resource and producing a hydrocarbon material utilizing the produced hydrogen and the recovered carbon dioxide;
Carbon Dioxide is a valuable raw material resource.
As the full Disclosure of US Patent 7,989,507 reveals, we can economically convert it into both liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels.
Such confirmation, of course, is simply in addition to that expressed in a number of other recent awards of similar United States Patents, as we've been reporting, and as published by the West Virginia Coal Association for one instance in:
US Navy and Columbia University Recycle Atmospheric CO2 | Research & Development; which presents information concerning both the:
"US Patent 7,420,004 - Process and System for Producing Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels; 2008; 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"; and, the:
"US Patent 7,833,328 - Scrubber for Capturing Carbon Dioxide from Air; 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".
And, herein, we present further confirmation of the fact, as expressed in USP 7,833,328, that, if do want to gather us up some Carbon Dioxide, so that we can start making our own "synthetic hydrocarbons" out of it, we can do so pretty much wherever we want to; wherever we might be able to harness some environmental energy, such as wind or hydro, to accomplish the task.
We don't, in other words, have to saddle our vital producers of Coal-based electricity with costly Carbon Dioxide capture systems that sap the energy being produced from Coal, and that, as seen in:
AEP puts brakes on carbon capture project - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports - ; which says, in part:
"$668 million carbon capture and storage project at Mountaineer Power Plant at New Haven in Mason County has been put on hold indefinitely. American Electric Power officials cited inaction by Congress and the Obama administration in creating laws to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, saying that without such limits it was impossible to fund the project any further";
a CO2-capture device planted on a smoke stack can't succeed without government subsidies funded by punitive and discriminatory tax levies.
Which levies, primarily against the consumers of Coal-based electricity, would continue on ad infinitum through electric bills forever increased to cover the on-going costs of Carbon Dioxide capture.
Herein, however, we again confirm that we don't have to burden our vital Coal-use industries, or their customers, with those costs of such Carbon Dioxide capture.
And, we cite one of the inventors of the above-noted "US Patent 7,833,328 - Scrubber for Capturing Carbon Dioxide from Air", who, as we will demonstrate in reports to follow, continues to work with the noted scholar, Klaus Lackner, and Columbia University, and others, in an enterprise focused on commercializing the technology of capturing and recycling atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
Comment is inserted within and follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 7,993,432 - Air Collector ... for Capturing Ambient CO2
Date: August, 2011
Inventors: Dennis Wright and Eddy Peters, AZ
Assignee: Kilimanjaro Energy, Inc., WI
(Note, as in: "Kilimanjaro Energy is developing technologies to capture carbon dioxide from the air for beneficial commercial use in a variety of existing and new industries. Our technologies will economically capture CO2 wherever and whenever it is needed. Atmospheric CO2 is a vast resource whose transformation into useful products can help humanity close the carbon cycle"; and, in reports to follow, we will attempt to identify Kilimanjaro Energy more satisfactorily, and demonstrate that they are a credible organization working in concert with, among others, New York City's Columbia University.)
Abstract: An apparatus for capture of CO2 from the atmosphere comprising an anion exchange material formed in a matrix exposed to a flow of the air.
Claims: A process for removing CO2 from atmospheric air at a location remote from where the CO2 was generated, comprising the steps of passing atmospheric air in contact with an apparatus comprising a solid anion exchange material, whereupon CO2 is captured directly by the anion exchange material, and treating the anion exchange material to remove and concentrate the captured CO2 and to convert the captured CO2 to an useful product.
The process ... including the step of converting the captured CO2 to methane ... using a Sabatier process.
The process ... wherein the captured CO2 is converted to liquid synthetic fuel or a plastic.
Description and Background: The present invention in one aspect relates to removal of selected gases from air. The invention has particular utility for the extraction of carbon dioxide (CO2) from air and will be described in connection with such (use), although other (uses) are contemplated, including the sequestration of other gases including NOx and SO2.
Extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from ambient air would make it possible to use carbon-based fuels and deal with the associated greenhouse gas emissions after the fact. Since CO2 is neither poisonous nor harmful in parts per million quantities, but creates environmental problems simply by accumulating in the atmosphere, it is possible to remove CO2 from air in order to compensate for equally sized emissions elsewhere and at different times.
The air capture device in accordance with the present invention constitutes a front-end component of a larger system designed to capture low concentration ambient CO2, chemically remove the captured CO2 from the air capture device, concentrate the CO2 (and) reconstitute the process chemicals and reactivate the CO2 capture materials in preparation for the next capture cycle."
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As we will further document in reports to follow, the technology developed by Wright, Peters, Lackner, et. al., will enable the efficient capture and separation of CO2 from the atmosphere wherever we, based on the availability of sun, wind, hydro, or, as we have separately documented to be available in parts of West Virginia and elsewhere in US Coal Country, geothermal energy, decide we want to capture that CO2.
And, then, again, we can, as in some other examples accessible via:
Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development; concerning: "High-Rate Solar Photocatalytic Conversion of CO2 and Water Vapor to Hydrocarbon Fuels; 2009; The Pennsylvania State University; 2009; Abstract: Efficient solar conversion of carbon dioxide and water vapor to methane",
start converting some of that efficiently-captured Carbon Dioxide to Methane, and, then, we can, as in:
March, 2011, CO2-to-Methanol US Patent Awarded | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,906,559 - Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol and/or Dimethyl Ether; March, 2011; Assignee: University of Southern California; Abstract: The invention discloses a method of converting carbon dioxide to methanol and/or dimethyl ether using any methane source or natural gas consisting of a combination of steam and dry reforming ... with subsequent conversion of the CO and H2 mixture exclusively to methanol and/or dimethyl ether";
use that CO2-derived Methane to convert even more of our efficiently-captured Carbon Dioxide into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.