The topic we address herein might be one initially distasteful to some of our readers.
But, given both the seeming trend of regulatory sentiment, and what might be the very real potentials for actually making a buck or two, we thought we should begin addressing it.
The capture and concentration of Carbon Dioxide might - - if tax extortions, like Cap & Trade, or venal exploitations, like the mandated Geologic Sequestration of CO2 in leaky old oil wells, to help Big Oil recover more natural petroleum, but to be done at the expense of the consumers of Coal-based electrical power, become law, - - be something we will, in any case, be coerced into doing.
Keep in mind, though, that, as we've pretty thoroughly documented, Carbon Dioxide could and should be viewed as a valuable raw material resource.
Most pertinent to our discussion herein is our recent report, now accessible on the West Virginia Coal Association's web site via the link:
August 2011, CO2-to-Gasoline US Patent Awarded | Research & Development; which concerns:
"United States Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel Materials Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide; 2011; Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (AG), Germany; Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method for utilizing CO2 waste comprising recovering carbon dioxide from an industrial process that produces a waste stream comprising carbon dioxide in an amount greater than an amount of carbon dioxide present in starting materials for the industrial process. The method further includes producing hydrogen using a renewable energy resource and producing a hydrocarbon material utilizing the produced hydrogen and the recovered carbon dioxide."
The end products, the "hydrocarbon material"s, are, as revealed by the full Disclosure, liquid hydrocarbon fuels, including those which can be used for blending Gasoline.
We have, of course, documented that the collection of Carbon Dioxide, for such recycling and conversion processes, can be effected from the environment itself, as seen, for one example, in our report of:
US Navy and Columbia University Recycle Atmospheric CO2 | Research & Development; which report includes details of both the:
"US Patent 7,833,328 - Scrubber for Capturing Carbon Dioxide from Air; 2010; Assignee: Columbia University; Abstract: The present invention is directed to methods for carbon dioxide from air"; and, 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, with a catalyst".
We've suggested, in many of our reports concerning such potentials for recycling Carbon Dioxide, that the collection and conversion of it could, in fact, be best and most economically accomplished where the happy coincidence of sufficient natural air flow and the availability of environmental energy to drive the processes might be present together in sufficient quantities to make such an effort worthwhile.
For instance, as seen separately in:
Mountaineer Wind Energy Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; concerning the: "Mountaineer Wind Energy Center ... a wind farm on Backbone Mountain in Preston and Tucker counties in the US state of West Virginia; and, in:
Business, Government , Legal News from Throughout W.Va. - West Virginia preparing for geothermal energy; which article includes information concerning the fact that: "West Virginia's Center for Environmental, Geotechnical, and Applied Sciences, CEGAS, is developing a program for West Virginia Geothermal Energy Conference in Flatwoods.The SMU Geothermal Laboratory estimated that the state's geothermal generation potential is about 18,890 megawatts, or about 75 percent higher than previously estimated. The hottest areas are concentrated below Tucker, Randolph, Pocahontas, and Greenbrier counties";
there are places in Coal Country where such fortuitous combinations of potentials exist.
However, since Coal-fired electricity generating stations are often found in clusters, where Coal mines, water, and Coal transport facilities are all in close proximity, it might be feasible, on a practical basis, to think in terms of collecting Carbon Dioxide as it is emitted from various sources, and, then, consolidating the various streams and forwarding them into a facility founded on a process like that disclosed by Siemens AG, as in our above citation of "US Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel Materials Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide".
And, herein, we see that Siemens might just be thinking along the same lines, since they have, somewhat coincidentally, been developing technologies which would seem to enable the efficient collection of Carbon Dioxide from individual stationary sources, such as Coal-fired power plants.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link to:
"Development of an Economic Post-Combustion Carbon Capture Process
Presented originally at GHGT-9 – Washington D.C., USA; November, 2008
Authors: Dr. Tobias Jockenhoevel, et. al., Siemens AG and EON Energie AG, Germany
Siemens develops an improved CO2 capture process with minimized energy demand, optimized for integration in conventional coal-fired power plants.
The solvent based on an amino-acid salt solution features low absorption enthalpy and near-zero vapor pressure, permitting an economic and environmentally friendly capture process.
Optimized process configuration and power plant integration significantly reduce the energy demand and
result in an efficiency penalty of approximately 9%-points.
(Note: The "efficiency penalty", which relates to the amount of energy needed to collect the Carbon Dioxide versus the amount of energy generated by the process which creates the CO2, is a dramatic improvement over others we've seen and studied, which can exact such energy penalties in excess of 25%. By extrapolation, this Siemens process of collecting and concentrating the CO2 should only add about 10% to the cost of generating electricity from Coal. That might, though, only be the operational cost, and not include amortizing the capital expense of actually purchasing and installing the needed equipment.)
By giving CO2 emissions an economic value, the European Emission Trading System (ETS) is a driver towards low-carbon power generation technologies, unless the CO2 caps can be achieved just by switching fuels and by realizing efficiency- increasing retrofit measures within the existing generation fleet.
It is ... essential to bring Carbon Capture and Storage to commercial maturity as soon as possible (by) focusing on retrofittable capture technology options.
The overall project target is to obtain an optimally-integrated advanced capture process based on an improved solvent that shows major advantages compared to Mono-Ethanol-Amine (MEA)-based processes in terms of energy efficiency, solvent slip and life-cycle costs. The POSTCAP research activity is characterized by an integral approach.
Development targets are: Optimization of a CO2 capture solvent for application in steam power plants, with advantages regarding performance, environmental aspects (solvent slip, safety), costs and stability in coal flue gas.
Optimal integration of CO2 capture process into power plant regarding steam/power extraction and operational flexibility.
Amino-acid salts have ionic structure and are less sensitive to oxygen. As salts have no vapor pressure, they are not inflammable. Furthermore, the solvent exhibits low thermal sensitivity, so that refill requirements are expected to be very low, which has a direct impact on the operating costs of the CO2 capture plant.
Thermal stability of the solvent also gives more flexibility to the process design, i.e. the absorption and desorption process can be run at a wide range of temperatures and pressures.
This second-generation solvent is well-adapted to operational needs because handling for operation and storage is easy, i.e. it is not inflammable, not hazardous, and nontoxic and has a good biodegradability
With these benefits, the Siemens solvent is well adapted for CO2 capture from the flue gas of fossil-fired power plants.
Power plant integration: Due to the high thermal and electrical energy demand as well as cooling requirements of the captureunit, a material integration between the capture unit and the power plant, i.e. the utilization of the power plant infrastructure for the capture unit, is an imperative in terms of efficiency and economics. The need for low-pressure steam for thermal regeneration of the loaded solvent has the main impact on power output and plant efficiency.
(Note, since the "need for low-pressure steam for thermal regeneration of the loaded solvent" does have "the main impact on power output and plant efficiency", do you suppose that, as cited above, "West Virginia's Center for Environmental, Geotechnical, and Applied Sciences" might have some suggestions about the supplemental use of the "state's geothermal" resources in such an application?)
Fossil fuels are expected to remain the backbone of worldwide electricity production in the next decades, (and, thus) Carbon Capture ... will play a significant role for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Currently available post-combustion capture technologies lack the desired energy efficiency and show a potentially high amount of solvent loss due to chemical and thermal degradation as well as some solvent slip to the atmosphere.
In an integral approach, Siemens has been developing a proprietary solvent-based post-combustion capture process and optimized solvent with the objective to obtain an economic process with minimized environmental impact that can be optimally integrated into the power plant.
The efficiently designed and optimally integrated CO2 capture process based on an improved solvent shows major advantages compared to MEA-based processes in terms of energy efficiency, solvent slip and costs.
The advantages of Siemens’ process rely on an amino-acid salt solution as a solvent that has been optimized for high selectivity, high absorption capacity, low chemical and thermal degradation, low energy demand for solvent regeneration and near-zero solvent slip. Comprehensive measurement data from extensive trials have been used for detailed thermodynamic and chemical process modeling with state-of-the art engineering tools to obtain an enhanced capture process with significantly reduced thermal and electrical energy demand.
Considering the project results obtained so far, the Siemens process with optimized process configuration, power plant integration and solvent achieves an efficiency loss of approximately 9 %-points, including CO2 compression, compared to a standard coal-fired power plant."
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Truth to tell, we still don't, given the potentials we've documented concerning the capture of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere itself, and then, again using environmental energy, as seen additionally in:
Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development; concerning: "High-Rate Solar Photocatalytic Conversion of CO2 and Water Vapor to Hydrocarbon Fuels; The Pennsylvania State University; 2009; Efficient solar conversion of carbon dioxide and water vapor to methane"; and, in:
Pittsburgh USDOE Photo-Converts Methane to Methanol | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 5,720,858 - The Photocatalytic Conversion of Methane; 1998; Inventor: Richard Noceti, et. al., Pittsburgh, PA; Assignee: The United States of America; Abstract: A method for converting methane to methanol is provided comprising subjecting the methane to visible light in the presence of a catalyst";
to, as one way of going about it, first, convert the CO2 into Methane, and, then, convert the Methane into liquid fuels, know what advantages there might be to collecting CO2 at it's individual points of origination and then "pooling" it, for further processing by one of the CO2-recycling technologies we've cited herein.
Further, the cost of capturing Carbon Dioxide from individual power plants, as it is stated and defined herein by Siemens, might be somewhat misleading.
They quote all of their costs in Euro's, which means that the US Dollar costs, as we understand published rates of exchange, will be about 25% higher in terms of real money, i.e., US Dollars.
And, since they have to buy Coal, in Europe, at a cost that's a multiple, at least twice, of what we pay for it here in the United States, then the cost bases upon which their efficiency calculations are founded will be badly skewed, relative to the US market.
Even more, they do present estimated capital costs for the equipment installation itself; and, it is more than a little pricey.
Still, once in place, it is vastly more efficient than other CO2-capture technologies, and the penalty we would have to pay for collecting our CO2, once the Siemens process was installed at our power plants and the capital cost was behind us, would be smaller; and, thus, the cost basis for then making hydrocarbon fuels out of that Carbon Dioxide, perhaps via a process such as that disclosed in our report of:
Exxon 2010 CO2 + Methane = Liquid Hydrocarbons | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,772,447 - Production of Liquid Hydrocarbons from Methane; 2010; ExxonMobil;
wherein the Methane could be itself be synthesized, perhaps via the process such as that seen in another of our earlier reports:
Chicago Converts CO2 to Methane | Research & Development; concerning: "US Patent 3,766,027 - Method and Apparatus for CO2 Conversion to Methane; 1973; Assignee: Institute of Gas Technology, Chicago; Abstract: A process of fixation and conversion of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or other sources to produce methane and oxygen. Carbon dioxide is scrubbed from a CO2 -containing source and separated by process of chemical concentration. A special cell is provided in which hydrogen is produced and reacted with the separated CO2 at methanation conditions to produce methane";
from some of the efficiently-collected Carbon Dioxide, would be lower, and, thus, any "Liquid Hydrocarbons" synthesized, as, for one example, via the above-cited ExxonMobil process of "United States Patent 7,772,447 - Production of Liquid Hydrocarbons from Methane", wherein the CO2-based Methane is reacted with even more CO2, to make those "Liquid Hydrocarbons", would be smaller.
And, the profits flowing back into Coal Country, from the sale of those CO2-based "Liquid Hydrocarbons", would, thus, be larger.
Of course, if you would prefer, we could, instead, just go ahead and allow ourselves to be coerced into shipping that efficiently-collected Carbon Dioxide off to West Texas, all at our expense, to help them out with their secondary petroleum recovery from their withering oil fields, through mandated Geologic Sequestration.
But, here's another, albeit lengthy, thought:
If Cap & Trade taxation is inevitable, all of those taxes, for taxes are, indeed, what Cap & Trade penalties would be, should be set aside, "sequestered", to use a seemingly-appropriate word, for the sole and inviolate purpose of helping the generators of Coal-based electrical power to finance the acquisition of, first, the equipment to efficiently collect their Carbon Dioxide, perhaps utilizing that equipment and that process described herein by Siemens AG, in their "Development of an Economic Post-Combustion Carbon Capture Process", and, then, to establish the physical plant necessary, perhaps that such as described by our United States Navy, in their "US Patent 7,420,004 - Process and System for Producing Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels", or, perhaps more appropriately, that described by Siemens AG themselves, in their "US Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel Materials Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide", both as cited above, to convert that efficiently-collected Carbon Dioxide into such "Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels" and "Fuel Materials", and, thereby, get a little profit, a little prosperity, flowing back into United States Coal Country.