United States Patent Application: 0120201717
As we've said before, the pace of development of technologies for, and even the founding of industries focused on, the productive recycling of Carbon Dioxide seems to us to be accelerating, to the point where, we confess, we won't be able to keep you adequately apprised of those developing and emerging CO2-recycling technologies and industries.
For a long time, CO2, along with the Chicken Little-hyped hysteria over its conjectural contribution to global warming and climate change, was the Big Stick used on King Coal by people who have presented themselves as being defenders of our environment; but, who's real motives, we insist, need to be more fully examined; especially in light of news stories such as:
Exclusive: How the Sierra Club Took Millions From the Natural Gas Industry—and Why It Stopped | TIME.com; "TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy - one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking - to help fund the Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign".
Quick question: Did anyone in Coal Country ever see anything, at all, about any of that, in any Coal Country newspaper, especially in any of those Coal Country news rags whose new stock and trade seemed for awhile to have become the reproduction of shale gas industry news releases?
Don't you wonder why? We sure do.
Herein, we're going to provide you with a little more information on one or two other issues that you, you common miners of US Coal, and you economically-indentured buyers of OPEC fuel, haven't yet - "yet", we'll give them that doubtful benefit - been informed of by your Coal Country press.
First of all, everyone is, or should be, familiar with the concept of Cap and Trade taxes, that is, Carbon Dioxide taxes, perhaps a codified and disguised, sly, form of restraint of trade, that will be levied against the producers of Coal-based electric power and, no doubt, passed along to their customers in the form of rate increases.
It's been pushed for a long time, but, got stalled out a while back in 2010, as can be learned via:
Tracing the Demise of Cap and Trade - NYTimes.com.
And, to his credit, at least, one office holder loyal to his Coal Country constituency is, as in:
Rockefeller seeking ideas for advancing carbon capture - Business, Government Legal News from throughout WV; "We haven't heard much urgency about carbon capture and storage since cap and trade legislation to limit carbon emissions died in the Senate in July 2010. But in preparing to write fresh legislation to promote its development, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is seeking ideas from a wide range of stakeholders. The West Virginia Democrat sent a letter Aug. 3 to about 30 coal, utility, labor, environmental and analysis organizations that operate at the national scale asking for their thoughts on how now to move forward with carbon capture, use and storage, or CCUS. "Technological development to reduce carbon emissions is critical to increasing our energy and economic security, reducing our environmental impact and securing the future of coal and other domestic resources," Rockefeller wrote. "I would appreciate your suggestions and ideas about the research targets, policies, and regulatory and financial incentives that are needed to fully develop the potential of CCUS and thereby secure tangible benefits for our environment and our economy," he wrote. This may be a good time, politically, for a renewed push for investment in CCUS, given newly energized talk of a carbon tax. On the other hand, given that it will increase the cost of using coal at a time of persistent competition from inexpensive natural gas, it may be a particularly challenging time";
trying to find constructive and profitable alternatives for the use of CO2, rather than just it's putative "storage".
The Coal Country Press hasn't, insofar as we've been able to determine, done anything to help Senator Rockefeller out with any of that, although, as we've many times documented, a company operating in the nation of Iceland, but with some US roots, is now, on a commercial and industrial basis, converting industrial exhaust Carbon Dioxide into Methanol, and is selling that CO2-based Methanol through service stations in parts of Europe.
One of our reports concerning that fact is accessible via:
West Virginia Coal Association | Iceland Seeks CO2 Recycling World Patent | Research & Development
concerning: "World Patent Application Number: PCT/IS2007/000007; Title: PROCESS FOR PRODUCING LIQUID FUEL FROM CARBON DIOXIDE AND WATER; Inventors: Arthur Schulenberger, US; Oddur Ingolfson, Iceland; et. al.".
And, we include that example since, when we first posted it, we weren't certain, in fact, that the inventors were actually associated with the Icelandic Carbon Dioxide-recycling, liquid fuel-producing company, Carbon Recycling International, CRI, about whom we've reported many times. But, official confirmation of the fact that they are a part of CRI, that, in fact, the esteemed "Arthur Schulenberger" is one of the founders of CRI, comes from an oddly public place. It is revealed in the full article now accessible via:
Carbon Recycling International - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "Carbon Recycling International Inc. (CRI) is an Icelandic-American renewable methanol company. Its emissions-to-liquid process uses carbon dioxide and water to create methanol fuel".
Folks, don't let the implications of the above slide by:
An ubiquitous, universal, seriously well-documented source of information on the inter net can and does tell you all about how: a company in Iceland is capturing industrial effluent Carbon Dioxide and is then converting that Carbon Dioxide into liquid fuel, and is selling that fuel, at a profit, through service stations in Iceland and other parts of Europe.
The Wikipedia can tell you all about it, but: your Coal Country Press can't, it seems, breathe a word - even when suspiciously-motivated environmental movements threaten your absolutely key industrial wages-paying employer, King Coal, the bedrock of your economy, with specious slander based in large part on the Carbon Dioxide-Global Warming canard?
The Wikipedia can tell you all about it, but: your Coal Country Press can't, it seems, breathe a word - even when some one of you reading this might well have had to send one of your children in uniform off to fight in a Persian Gulf oil war?
Maybe there's a leak under the sink. Sure is beginning to smell like it. Maybe we need to get some pipes patched and rip out some rotten wood.
In any case, herein is more recent technology being developed by Carbon Recycling International, CRI, wherein Carbon Dioxide is being converted not just into Methanol, but, as part of an integrated process, into more "conventional" liquid hydrocarbon fuels, or at least components of those fuels.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"US Patent Application 20120201717 - Process and System for Producing Liquid Fuel from CO2 and Water
Process and System For Producing Liquid Fuel From Carbon Dioxide And Water - CRI, EHF.
Date: August 9, 2012
Shwetank Singh, et. al., Iceland
Assignee: CRI, Iceland
Abstract: A process and system for producing high octane fuel from carbon dioxide and water is disclosed. The feedstock for the production line is industrial carbon dioxide and water, which may be of lower quality. The end product can be high octane gasoline, high cetane diesel or other liquid hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional combustion engines or hydrocarbons suitable for further industrial processing or commercial use.
Products, such as dimethyl ether or methanol may also be withdrawn from the production line. The process is emission free and reprocesses all hydrocarbons not suitable for liquid fuel to form high octane products. The heat generated by exothermic reactions in the process is fully utilized as is the heat produced in the reprocessing of hydrocarbons not suitable for liquid fuel.
(You know, there isn't much in the above that we haven't documented to be feasible in other reports from other people. But, note: They are converting CO2, and water, into Gasoline and Diesel; and, most of the energy needed is generated within the process itself from "exothermic reactions" that are a part of the process.)
Claims: A system for production of liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and water using electricity, the system comprising:
(a) a purification unit in fluid communication with a mixed industrial gas stream of industrial plants and/or power plants, wherein said purification unit separates carbon dioxide from said mixed industrial gas stream;
(b) an electrolysis unit to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen;
(c) a first mixing tank disposed downstream of and in fluid communication with said purification unit and said electrolysis unit to mix said carbon dioxide and said hydrogen;
(d) a catalytic reactor disposed downstream of and in fluid communication with said first mixing tank to receive the mixture of said carbon dioxide and said hydrogen and to produce methanol and carbon monoxide and water;
(e) a second mixing tank disposed downstream of and in fluid communication with said catalytic reactor, wherein said second mixing tank accepts a portion of said carbon monoxide; and
(f) a liquid fuel generation reactor disposed downstream of and in fluid communication with said second mixing tank, wherein said liquid fuel generation reactor receives and converts a portion of said carbon monoxide in the presence of substantially pure hydrogen gas to produce a liquid fuel.
The system ... wherein said catalytic reactor further comprises a reverse water gas shift reactor for the formation of said carbon monoxide.
(The "reverse water gas shift" reaction, as they mean it, reacts Hydrogen with CO2 to produce Water and Carbon Monoxide. It is well-known and understood. Important to this process is an efficient and economical supply of Hydrogen, perhaps as described, for one example, in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Japan Maximizes Hydrogen Production from Wind Power | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,667,343 - Hydrogen Production System Using Wind Turbine Generator; 2010; Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo; Abstract: A wind turbine-driven hydrogen production system controlling a power converter system such that the wind turbine stays in its operable range for a longer time and thus the hydrogen production system produces hydrogen for a longer time".
There are good, economical alternatives for Hydrogen production, as in the above, which can utilize a variety of environmental energies to drive the processes.)
The system ... wherein said second mixing tank is disposed downstream of said purification unit to receive a direct supply of said carbon dioxide (and) wherein said second mixing tank directly supplies a mixture of said carbon dioxide and said hydrogen to said liquid fuel generation reactor for the production of said liquid fuel (and) wherein said liquid fuel generation reactor comprises at least one of a methanol reactor, a methanol-to-gasoline reactor, and a Fisher-Tropsch reactor.The system ... wherein said liquid fuel comprises at least one of an alcohol, an ether, and a hydrocarbon.
Background and Field: The present invention is broadly within the field of energy conversion and relates to processes and systems for producing hydrogen by electrolysis of water, processes for reacting hydrogen with carbon dioxide for producing methanol and/or producing syngas and processes for synthetic liquid fuel production.
Summary: The present invention provides an integrated, emission-free process for conversion of carbon dioxide and water to liquid fuel, such as high octane gasoline or diesel, suitable to drive combustion engines. The process may also be used to produce other hydrocarbons or hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional combustion engines or hydrocarbons suitable for further industrial processing or other commercial use. Intermediate products such as methanol or dimethylether may also be generated by the production process of the invention. The overall process comprises in a preferred embodiment the conversion of water and carbon dioxide to C5+ hydrocarbons (i.e., with five or more carbon atoms), preferably C5-C10 hydrocarbons. The overall process may also encompass the conversion of water and carbon dioxide to high cetane diesel or other liquid hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional diesel combustion engines."
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We don't know what more can be said, really. A company that's already, as documented by the Wikipedia, and many others, making money by capturing industrial effluent Carbon Dioxide and converting it into Methanol says they can profitably convert industrial effluent CO2 into Gasoline and Diesel, as well.Why don't we just see, ask, if they sell franchise licenses? Do we have enough gumption for that, at least?
Does anyone in the Coal Country press corps have the gumption to, as in the above-referenced:
let the Honorable Jay Rockefeller know that, yes, Sir, we do have some options for the Use of CO2; options that would help to reduce our foreign imbalance of trade, unchain us from OPEC, improve our national security, and create US jobs, especially jobs in US Coal Country?
Based on our own sad personal experience over the past half dozen and more years, experience related both to Coal and to other dramatic, but non-Coal, issues, our guess would be "no". Your sorry old Coal Country press corps just don't seem all that fond of making strong stands or taking risks, or undertaking a lot of hard work, in the pursuit of Truth, Justice and the American Way.
But, herein, the small nation of Iceland has published a huge statement for us in the international Declaration of Energy Independence.
Whether we cheer and rally round the cause or just shrug and wander off aimlessly into the darkness will say a lot about us all as a people.
What is it about us all that you would like to be said?