We've presented you with a number of reports documenting the development, by Japan's Panasonic Corporation, of a suite of chemical energy conversion technologies designed to, as seen for one example in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Panasonic Sunshine Extracts Even More Hydrogen from H2O | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent Application 20130075250 - Hydrogen Production Device; March 28, 2013; Assignee: Panasonic Corporation, (Japan); A hydrogen production device ... for producing hydrogen directly from water and sunlight";
use environmental energy, specifically sunlight, to drive the conversion of relatively inert molecules into more energetic substances, what we might label as "energy carriers".
As we've documented in a number of other reports, including, for several examples:
West Virginia Coal Association | Japan Converts CO2 into Lower-Cost Methane | Research & Development
concerning: "US Patent Application 20120018311 - Carbon Dioxide Reduction Method; Date: January 26, 2012; Inventors: Satoshi Yotsuhashi, et. al., Japan; Assignee: Panasonic Corporation; Abstract: The carbon dioxide reduction method of the present invention is a method including steps of: bringing an electrode (working electrode) containing a carbide of at least one element selected from Group V elements (vanadium, niobium, and tantalum) into contact with an electrolytic solution; and introducing carbon dioxide into the electrolytic solution to reduce the introduced carbon dioxide by the electrode. The material contained in the electrode, that is, the material containing a carbide of at least one element selected from Group V elements (vanadium, niobium, and tantalum) is the carbon dioxide reduction catalyst of the present invention"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Japan Solar Energy Converts More CO2 into Methane | Research & Development; concerning: "US Patent Application 20120234691 - Method for Reducing Carbon Dioxide; Date: September 20, 2012; Inventor: Masahiro Deguchi, et. al.; Japan; Assignee: Panasonic Corporation; Abstract: The method for reducing carbon dioxide ... wherein ... at least one compound selected from the group consisting of methane, ethylene, ethane and formic acid is produced"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Panasonic Corporation Converts More CO2 into Methane | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent Application 20120292199 - Method for Reducing Carbon Dioxide; Date: November 22, 2012; Inventors: Masahiro Deguchi, et. al.; Assignee: Panasonic Corporation; Abstract: The method for reducing carbon dioxide ... wherein ... at least one compound selected from the group consisting of methane, ethylene, ethane and formic acid is produced";
Panasonic have applied the same approach to that old global warming devil, Carbon Dioxide.
We know that our excerpts from the last two US Patent Applications cited immediately above make them sound identical.
They are not.
There are, it seems to us, subtle differences in specifications for the catalysts and photocatalysts, and other processing conditions, which differentiate them.
And, as we have just discovered, the honorable Panasonic scientists Deguchi and Yotsuhashi have, in fact, engineered an entire flotilla of closely-related Carbon Dioxide recycling and utilization technologies for which United States patents have been applied.
We'll attempt within the next week to compile a catalogue of those we think might be of most interest, and make what will be a sadly inadequate summary report of them.
But, herein, we wanted to document that our own United States Government experts just recently, a little more than a week ago, confirmed the technical validity of one of those Panasonic processes, a process that could, while making opportunistic, parasitic CO2 Cap and Trade taxes even more of a counter-productive exploitation of our vital Coal-use industries and their customers than they already are, and the concept of mandated geologic sequestration of CO2 in leaky old oil wells utterly ludicrous, also render the malevolent, domineering OPEC dragon an obsolete, irrelevant dinosaur.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to the quite recently-issued:
"United States Patent 8,414,758 - Method for Reducing Carbon Dioxide
Patent US8414758 - Method for reducing carbon dioxide - Google Patents
Method for reducing carbon dioxide - Panasonic Corporation
Date: April 9, 2013
Inventors: Masahiro Deguchi, Satoshi Yotsuhashi, and Yuka Yamada, Japan
Assignee: Panasonic Corporation, Osaka
Abstract: A device for reducing carbon dioxide includes a cathode chamber including a cathode electrolyte solution and a cathode electrode, an anode chamber including an anode electrolyte solution and an anode electrode, and a solid electrolyte membrane. The anode electrode includes a nitride semiconductor region on which a metal layer is formed. The metal layer includes at least one of nickel and titanium. A method for reducing carbon dioxide by using a device for reducing carbon dioxide includes steps of providing carbon dioxide into the cathode solution, and irradiating at least part of the nitride semiconductor region and the metal layer with a light having a wavelength of 250 nanometers to 400 nanometers, thereby reducing the carbon dioxide contained in the cathode electrolyte solution.
(The above wave-lengths of light, as we're told by our US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, via:
NREL: Solar Radiation Research - Optical Metrology Laboratory;
are in the ultraviolet range of Solar radiation. There are artificial sources of such light we can employ; but, this process might be best designated as "solar powered".)
Claims: A method for reducing carbon dioxide with use of a device for reducing carbon dioxide, the method comprising steps of:
(a) of preparing the device for reducing carbon dioxide, wherein: the device comprises: a cathode chamber; an anode chamber; and a solid electrolyte membrane, the cathode chamber comprises a cathode electrode including a metal or a metal compound, the anode chamber comprises an anode electrode including a nitride semiconductor region on the surface thereof, a part of the surface of the nitride semiconductor region is covered with a nickel or titanium region, the nickel or titanium region is in contact with the nitride semiconductor region, a first electrolyte solution is held in the cathode chamber, a second electrolyte solution is held in the anode chamber, the cathode electrode is in contact with the first electrolyte solution, the anode electrode is in contact with the second electrolyte solution, the solid electrolyte membrane is interposed between the cathode chamber and the anode chamber, the first electrolyte solution contains the carbon dioxide, the cathode electrode is electrically connected to the anode electrode, a battery or a potentiostat as an external power supply is not electrically interposed between the cathode electrode and the anode electrode, the anode electrode comprises an anode electrode terminal for collecting electrons generated in the anode electrode, and the nickel or titanium region is apart from the anode electrode terminal; and:
(b) of irradiating at least part of the nitride semiconductor region on which the nickel or titanium region are formed with a light having a wavelength of 250 nanometers to 400 nanometers so as to cause a current to flow between the cathode electrode and the anode electrode and to reduce the carbon dioxide contained in the first electrolyte solution at the cathode electrode ... .
The method ... wherein the nitride semiconductor region includes gallium nitride (and) wherein the cathode electrode ... is copper.
(The above "gallium nitride" might sound terribly exotic. If you're wondering where we might get some, we remind you, that, as seen in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Coal Ash a Superior Source of High-Tech Metal | Research & Development; concerning, in part: "Extraction of Germanium and Gallium from Coal Fly Ash; Technical Report BM-RI-6940; OSTI ID: 7342110; 1966; (US) Bureau of Mines";
we shouldn't have to look too hard or very far.)
The method ... wherein the first electrolyte solution is a potassium bicarbonate aqueous solution (and) wherein the second electrolyte solution is a sodium hydroxide aqueous solution or a potassium hydroxide aqueous solution.
The method ... wherein ... the device is left at a room temperature and under atmospheric pressure.
(Note the above implications for efficiency and economy. Basically, the only energy that needs supplied to this device and method is light of the appropriate wavelength; i.e., sunshine.)
The method ... wherein ... formic acid (and/or) carbon monoxide (and/or) methane is obtained.
Industrial Applicability: The present disclosure provides a novel method for reducing carbon dioxide."
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We'll close our excerpts there, since the bulk of the disclosure is given over to verbal description of the design and operation of the device, which, as specified, chemically reduces Carbon Dioxide, transforms it, into such things as "carbon monoxide (and/or) methane".
We documented just recently, in the full dispatch of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Environmentalists Try to Block Bayer CO2 Recycling | Research & Development; centering on the Bayer Corporation report: "'Raw Materials Network On The Rhine'; Carbon monoxide (CO) - - an important raw material for the chemical industry",
how valuable Carbon Monoxide can be in the synthesis of certain plastics. And, as seen for only one out of many examples in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Pittsburgh 1941 CO2 + Methane = Hydrocarbon Syngas | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 2,266,989 - Manufacture of a Gas from CO2 and Methane; 1941; Assignee: Koppers Company, Pittsburgh, PA; Abstract: The present invention relates to the manufacture of gases suitable for the synthesis of higher hydrocarbons or the like, said gases containing definite volumes of carbon monoxide and hydrogen in a certain proportion, by reacting on methane ... with carbon dioxide or a mixture of carbon dioxide and steam, so that the methane ... is decomposed into hydrogen and carbon monoxide";
it's been known in certain informed circles for a very long time that Methane, as might be synthesized via the process of our subject herein, "United States Patent 8,414,758 - Method for Reducing Carbon Dioxide", from Carbon Dioxide, can be reacted with even more Carbon Dioxide, with both the Methane and the CO2 being transformed through such reaction into a synthesis gas blend of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen suitable for the catalytic "synthesis of higher hydrocarbons", including liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels.
And, even though you might not have been made aware of such potentials for Carbon Dioxide recycling by your Coal Country press, and, certainly, no public statements we've seen make it plain, it seems possible, based on information like that which can be gleaned from:
Bill Text - 111th Congress (2009-2010) - THOMAS (Library of Congress); concerning Senate Bill "S.3072 -- Stationary Source Regulations Delay Act; 111th CONGRESS; 2d Session; Mr. Rockefeller introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works: To suspend, during the 2-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, any Environmental Protection Agency action under the Clean Air Act with respect to carbon dioxide ...";
to infer that certain Coal Country elected representatives, representatives so genuinely concerned with, and active on the behalf of, Coal Country citizens and the health of the Coal Country economy, that, as seen in:
Jay Rockefeller -- the Evolution of a Coal-State Senator - NYTimes.com; "Sen. Jay Rockefeller's efforts in the last year to head off U.S. EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from sources like coal-fired power plants have made him a target for national environmentalists while confirming his long-established position as a friend and champion of his state's coal miners. Bill Banig, director of government affairs for the United Mine Workers of America ... said the union had made Rockefeller an honorary member because of his support for them over the years, an honor rarely bestowed on an elected official";
they've been recognized by and made honorary members of the United Mine Workers of America, might well know of the potentials; and, are doing their best to see to it that we US citizens in US Coal Country are given the time we need, the time the nation needs, to wake up to the fact, that:
Carbon Dioxide, as it arises in only a small way, relative to all-natural and non-Cap & Trade taxable sources of emission, such as the Earth's inexorable processes of planetary volcanism, most of which takes place unseen deep beneath the surface of the ocean, from our economically essential use of Coal in the generation of abundant and truly affordable electric power, is a valuable raw material resource.
We can, as herein taught by Japan's Panasonic Corporation and as confirmed by our own US Government technical experts, collect Carbon Dioxide from whatever handy source, and, using only sunlight to drive the process, convert that Carbon Dioxide, as dissolved in a "sodium hydroxide aqueous solution or a potassium hydroxide aqueous solution", into such seemingly-desirable stuff as Methane.
About time somebody saw to it that we all got caught up on the truth of the matter, ain't it?