United States Patent Application: 0130152596
This will be an overlong, rambling dispatch; and, we apologize for that. But, the point we hope and intend to make herein is one we have often repeated; one which, the sooner it's recognized and accepted, will make our lives in US Coal Country, in the entire United States of America, indeed, in the entire world, better:
Carbon Dioxide, as it arises in only a small way, relative to natural sources of emission, such as the Earth's inexorable processes of planetary volcanism, from our essential use of Coal in the generation of abundant, reliable and truly affordable electric power, is a precious, even a vital, resource.
Up front: It is now saving us from environmental disaster; and, to a point, contrary to much of the CO2-based global warming nonsense you've been treated to, the more we have of it in our atmosphere, the more comfortable, the healthier, and the safer, we all will be.
If you have followed our reports at all, concerning especially the technologies that have been developed whereby Carbon Dioxide can be, and is in some places now being, harvested from the environment or from industrial processes and then converted into any and all sorts of needed liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels and plastics manufacturing raw materials, you will know that to be true in terms of Carbon Dioxide's immense potential value as a raw material resource for industry.
We'll get back to addressing that momentarily. But, new discoveries made by our National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(- - who, as seen for one example in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | NASA Improves CO2 to Methane Conversion | Research & Development; concerning: "US Patent Application 20120029095 - Sabatier Process and Apparatus for Controlling Exothermic Reaction; 2012; Abstract: A Sabatier process involving contacting carbon dioxide and hydrogen ... so as to produce a product stream comprising water and methane. ... An apparatus for controlling temperature in an exothermic reaction, such as the Sabatier reaction, is disclosed. Government Interests: This invention was made with support from the U.S. government under U.S. Contract No. NNX10CF25P sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The U.S. Government holds certain rights in this invention";have publicly disclosed the fact that Carbon Dioxide is a raw material resource of potentially immense value, since, in a very energy-efficient process it can be converted into what would be an essentially inexhaustible supply of substitute natural gas Methane - -)
have just shown that Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere actually saves us from increasing global temperatures; it actually keeps the planet cool in the face of fluctuations in the amount of solar energy emitted by the Sun. And, in fact, the CO2 in our atmosphere recently saved us from a solar event-based environmental catastrophe.First, though, almost as an aside, we'll let a former NASA astronaut and an expert associate of his explain how increasing CO2 is helping to minimize world hunger:
Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide - WSJ.com; "'Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide'; Wall Street Journal; May 8, 2013; The demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlation with global temperature. Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity. The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been - - and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere. There isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather. The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a "pollutant" in need of reduction, would be a benefit. This is already widely recognized by operators of commercial greenhouses, who artificially increase the carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 ppm or more to improve the growth and quality of their plants. Using energy from sunlight - - together with the catalytic action of an ancient enzyme called rubisco, the most abundant protein on earth - - plants convert carbon dioxide from the air into carbohydrates and other useful molecules. Rubisco catalyzes the attachment of a carbon-dioxide molecule to another five-carbon molecule to make two three-carbon molecules, which are subsequently converted into carbohydrates. (Since the useful product from the carbon dioxide capture consists of three-carbon molecules, plants that use this simple process are called C3 plants.) C3 plants, such as wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton and many forage crops, evolved when there was much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than today. So these agricultural staples are actually undernourished in carbon dioxide relative to their original design.
At the current low levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, rubisco in C3 plants can be fooled into substituting oxygen molecules for carbon-dioxide molecules.
(RuBisCO - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; a green plant enzyme/enzymatic process that "catalyzes the primary chemical reaction by which inorganic carbon enters the biosphere".)
But this substitution reduces the efficiency of photosynthesis, especially at high temperatures. To get around the problem, a small number of plants have evolved a way to enrich the carbon-dioxide concentration around the rubisco enzyme, and to suppress the oxygen concentration. Called C4 plants because they utilize a molecule with four carbons, plants that use this evolutionary trick include sugar cane, corn and other tropical plants. Although C4 plants evolved to cope with low levels of carbon dioxide, the workaround comes at a price, since it takes additional chemical energy. With high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, C4 plants are not as productive as C3 plants, which do not have the overhead costs of the carbon-dioxide enrichment system. That's hardly all that goes into making the case for the benefits of carbon dioxide. Right now, at our current low levels of carbon dioxide, plants are paying a heavy price in water usage. Whether plants are C3 or C4, the way they get carbon dioxide from the air is the same: The plant leaves have little holes, or stomata, through which carbon dioxide molecules can diffuse into the moist interior for use in the plant's photosynthetic cycles. The density of water molecules within the leaf is typically 60 times greater than the density of carbon dioxide in the air, and the diffusion rate of the water molecule is greater than that of the carbon-dioxide molecule. So depending on the relative humidity and temperature, 100 or more water molecules diffuse out of the leaf for every molecule of carbon dioxide that diffuses in. And not every carbon-dioxide molecule that diffuses into a leaf gets incorporated into a carbohydrate. As a result, plants require many hundreds of grams of water to produce one gram of plant biomass, largely carbohydrate. Driven by the need to conserve water, plants produce fewer stomata openings in their leaves when there is more carbon dioxide in the air. This decreases the amount of water that the plant is forced to transpire and allows the plant to withstand dry conditions better.
Crop yields in recent dry years were less affected by drought than crops of the dust-bowl droughts of the 1930s, when there was less carbon dioxide. Nowadays, in an age of rising population and scarcities of food and water in some regions, it's a wonder that humanitarians aren't clamoring for more atmospheric carbon dioxide. Instead, some are denouncing it. We know that carbon dioxide has been a much larger fraction of the earth's atmosphere than it is today, and the geological record shows that life flourished on land and in the oceans during those times. The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science.Mr. Schmitt, an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was an Apollo 17 astronaut and a former U.S. senator from New Mexico. Mr. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton University and a former director of the office of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy."
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And, actually, aside from it's potential to help us stave off global hunger and the specter of slow starvation, by both nourishing and protecting the world's plant life to an extent not really envisioned by the common, dry explanations of botanical photosynthesis, Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere also protects and defends us directly from events so extraordinary they have the potential to devastate us directly and instantly.
As it did just last year, as explained by NASA via:
Solar Storm Dumps Gigawatts into Earth's Upper Atmosphere - NASA Science; "'Solar Storm Dumps Gigawatts into Earth's Upper Atmosphere'; March 22, 2012; A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years.
'This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,' says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. 'It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.'”
Mlynczak is the associate principal investigator for the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.
"Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space."
That’s what happened on March 8th when a coronal mass ejection (CME) propelled in our direction by an X5-class solar flare hit Earth’s magnetic field. (On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-class flares are the most powerful kind.) Energetic particles rained down on the upper atmosphere, depositing their energy where they hit. The action produced spectacular auroras around the poles and significant upper atmospheric heating all around the globe."The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree,” says Russell. “It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in."
For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.In human terms, this is a lot of energy. According to the New York City mayor’s office, an average NY household consumes just under 4700 kWh annually. This means the geomagnetic storm dumped enough energy into the atmosphere to power every home in the Big Apple for two years.
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So, Carbon Dioxide in our upper atmosphere, over the course of several days in March of 2012, acted as our cosmic "shield", deflecting a potentially disastrous storm of electromagnetic and thermal energy back into outer space, before it could do much of any harm here, on Earth's surface.
However, there is more to it. Although CO2 acts as our shield, deflecting, as above, enough thermal energy that struck us all at once to light New York "for two years"; it is also supposed to act as our blanket, according to the global warming fear mongers, keeping thermal energy in our environment. It is not, apparently, living up to that hype.
In a footnote appended to the article, NASA explains:
"No one on Earth’s surface would have felt this impulse of heat. Mlynczak puts it into perspective: 'Heat radiated by the solid body of the Earth is very large compared to the amount of heat being exchanged in the upper atmosphere. The daily average infrared radiation from the entire planet is ... enough to power NYC for 200,000 years.”
So, even though Carbon Dioxide is pretty good at buffering the effects of sudden radiation bursts that might rain down on us, as explained above by NASA, as former US Senator and NASA astronaut Harrison Schmitt explained further above maybe it doesn't really hold in that much heat, and, maybe, it acts more like a shock absorber than a shield or a blanket. Either way, it is also, as seen in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Germany Awarded 2011 CO2 Recycling US Patent | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel ... Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide; 2011; Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (AG), Munich, 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 ... . 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 inventors of the present invention have developed a novel method and system for utilizing waste carbon dioxide for the production of useful fuel materials. In one aspect of the present invention, the present invention provides a novel, efficient, and economical method and system for producing useful fuel materials, i.e. methane, methanol, carbon monoxide, syngas, gasoline products, and/or other fuel materials, from carbon dioxide recovered from carbon dioxide-containing waste streams via hydrogen produced by renewable energy resources";
a valuable, maybe even a precious, raw material resource from which we can synthesize such interesting things as "methane, methanol, ... gasoline products, and/or other fuel materials".
Note, in our above excerpts from Siemens AG's "US Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel ... Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide", that "recovering carbon dioxide from an industrial process that produces a waste stream comprising carbon dioxide" is the preferred way, in Siemens' way of thinking, of getting CO2 with which to synthesize "methane, methanol (and) gasoline".
And, if we're at all interested in synthesizing a little "methane, methanol (and) gasoline" out of Carbon Dioxide in US Coal Country, here, as excerpted from the initial link in this dispatch, is how Siemens themselves proposes we go about collecting it from our Coal-fired power plants:
"United States Patent Application 20130152596 - Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Station Having A Removal Apparatus For Carbon Dioxide And Process For Separating Carbon Dioxide From An Offgas From A Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Station
Date: June 20, 2013
Inventors: Hermann Kremer and Nicolas Vortmeyer, Germany
Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Germany
Abstract: A fossil fuel-fired power station having a removal apparatus for carbon dioxide which is located downstream of a combustion facility and through which an offgas containing carbon dioxide may flow is provided. The removal apparatus comprises an absorption unit and a desorption unit. The desorption unit is connected to a renewable energy source.
(One explanatory note: The technologies for reclaiming Carbon Dioxide from both industrial exhaust and the environment itself are proliferating at an astonishing rate. Based on who's developing those technologies, our conclusion here is that they, despite what might seem wording to the contrary, are all being developed for the perhaps not so well expressed purpose of utilizing Carbon Dioxide as a raw material in the synthesis of plastics and various hydrocarbon fuels, as, in our above-cited report concerning: "United States Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel ... Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide; 2011; Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (AG)", herein by Siemens AG. That point is further emphasized, by the fact that, first, as seen for just one example in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Bayer Is Converting Coal Power Plant CO2 Into Plastics | Research & Development; concerning: "Bayer Material Science CO2-to-Plastics Pilot Plant, Germany; In February 2011, Bayer MaterialScience started a new pilot plant (in the) North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany for producing plastics from carbon dioxide (CO2). It will be used to develop polyurethanes from the waste gas released during power generation. ... Bayer aims to use CO2 as an alternative to production of polymer materials from fossil fuels";
and, as can be learned separately via:
"CO2RRECT": Strategische Allianz aus chemischer Industrie und Energiewirtschaft - ExzellenzNRW;
Siemens is one of the primary industrial partners, with Bayer, in an alliance of German commercial, educational and governmental entities focused on developing the technologies to recover industrial exhaust gas Carbon Dioxide and then consume it in the synthesis of both fuels and plastics. More about "CO2RRECT" can be learned from the government of Germany itself, via:
Lehrstuhl für Technische Thermodynamik: Energy Systems Engineering; "'German Federal Ministry of Education and Research'; Within the framework of the CO2RRECT project the use of carbon dioxide as a feedstock for chemical industry in conjunction with mainly renewable energy shall be investigated. The goal is bind the carbon dioxide, which has been captured in power plants, sustainably in plastics. As methane currently is used as the primary feedstock for plastic production, the alternative route presented by use of carbon dioxide would lower the need for fossil primary energy sources".)
Claims: A fossil-fired power plant, comprising: a separation device for carbon dioxide which follows a combustion device and through which a carbon dioxide-containing exhaust gas is capable of flowing, the separation device, comprising: an absorption unit, and a desorption unit; a renewable energy source; and a heat accumulator, wherein the desorption unit is connected to the renewable energy source, wherein the heat accumulator is connected between the desorption unit and the renewable energy source, wherein a plurality of absorbent accumulators are connected into a scrubbing agent circuit of the separation device for carbon dioxide, and wherein the desorption unit is connected to a heat exchanger which is connected to the steam turbine unit of the fossil-fired power plant, so that heat energy from the steam turbine unit is administered by means of regulating devices to the desorption unit in the event of an insufficient supply of heat energy by the renewable energy source.
The fossil-fired power plant ... wherein the renewable energy source is a solar thermal plant and comprises a solar array (or) wherein the renewable energy source is a geothermal plant.
A method for separating carbon dioxide from an exhaust gas of a fossil-fired power plant, comprising: providing an absorption process and a desorption process, in which the heat energy required for the desorption process is provided by means of renewable energies; storing intermediately the renewably generated heat energy before being provided in the desorption process; and compensating a complete or partial undersupply of renewable heat energy to the desorption process by means of a regulating process in which the undersupply is made up by steam from a steam turbine process of the fossil-fired power plant.
The method ... wherein the heat energy for the desorption process is generated solar-thermally (or) wherein the heat energy for the desorption process is generated geothermally.
(The above is important, since nearly all post-combustion CO2 capture schemes, as herein, require the application of heat to release the CO2 from the absorbent; and, that heat can represent, by most estimates we've seen, 20% to 30% of the thermal energy generated by the fossil fuel, Coal, combustion. And, such obviously gross inefficiencies would
West Virginia Coal Association | Another Energy Bonanza for Coal Country | Research & Development; concerning, in part: "'West Virginia Geothermal; A Large Green Energy Source Beneath Northeastern West Virginia'; Southern Methodist University, 2010; New research produced by Southern Methodist University's Geothermal Laboratory, funded by a grant from Google.org, suggests that the temperature of the Earth beneath the state of West Virginia is significantly higher than previously estimated and capable of supporting commercial baseload geothermal energy production";
we do have some surprising resources along those lines available to us that your press hasn't, pretty obviously, thought you worthy of being told of. We'll note, as well, that abundant wind and hydro resources in Coal Country could be bent to the task of, indirectly, supplying heat to the CO2 liberation-absorbent regeneration process, although, as we well see in some reports to follow, there might well be more efficient ways of utilizing those resources to effect, basically, the same thing.)
Description: Fossil-fired power plant having a separation device for carbon dioxide and method for separating carbon dioxide from an exhaust gas of a fossil-fired power plant
The invention relates to a fossil-fired power plant having a combustion device and a separation device for carbon dioxide, in particular a separation device for carbon dioxide which is composed of an absorption unit and of a desorption unit. The invention relates, moreover, to a method for separating carbon dioxide from an exhaust gas of a fossil-fired power plant.
In fossil-fired power plants, a series of methods for separating carbon dioxide from the exhaust gas of the power plant are currently being developed and tested. In this case, scrubbing methods are employed, in which carbon dioxide is separated from the exhaust gas by chemical or physical absorption prior to combustion (precombustion) or after combustion (post combustion). In the post-combustion method, carbon dioxide is absorbed in absorption columns by a scrubbing agent which is regenerated again in a desorption column following the absorption column, thereby releasing carbon dioxide. The regenerated scrubbing agent is subsequently conducted from the desorption column via corresponding countercurrent heat exchangers back to the absorption column again and is thus circulated. For the desorption process, a large quantity of heat energy is required for regenerating the scrubbing agent and is supplied to the desorption column via sump evaporators and via heat exchangers in side vents of the desorption column.
The main problem in the existing methods for separating carbon dioxide from an exhaust gas is, in particular, the very high energy outlay which is required in the form of heating energy for desorption. No useful improvements have hitherto been found in this regard in the prior art which sufficiently reduce the energy outlay of a separation device for separating carbon dioxide which is integrated into a power station process.
The necessary heat energy has hitherto been extracted in the form of heating steam from the power station process. In fossil power station processes, at the present time a large part of the low-pressure steam of the steam turbine, usually between 30 and 70%, is used for regenerating the scrubbing agent, thereby reducing the overall efficiency of the power plant by 4 to 7%.
(We, in honesty, have no idea how the math is being done. As we noted in comments above, other analyses we've encountered summarize that 20% to 30% of the thermal energy generated by the power plant would be needed for regeneration of the CO2 absorbent and release of the CO2. Since some thermal energy is scrubbed from power plant systems in any case, as witnessed by needed "cooling towers", the overall sacrifice of efficiency, "4 to 7%", might not be that dramatic.)
Moreover, if an existing power plant is appropriately retrofitted with a carbon dioxide separation device, this results in considerable conversion work on the steam and water circuits and on the steam turbines and consequently in considerable investment.An object of the invention is, therefore, to propose a fossil-fired power plant which, in spite of a connected carbon dioxide separation device, achieves high efficiency, and in which, in the various operating states, the separation plant can be transferred more quickly into a stable separating operation, even when sufficient process steam is not yet available. Carbon dioxide emissions are consequently additionally prevented. A further object of the invention is to specify a method for separating carbon dioxide from an exhaust gas of a fossil-fired power plant, which ensures high efficiency, and in which, in the various operating states, the separation plant can be transferred more quickly into a stable separating operation, in order thereby additionally to prevent carbon dioxide emissions.
The invention is in this case based on the idea of providing the heat energy required for the separation device via an unconventional renewable energy source instead of via the power plant. This is possible because, in order to regenerate carbon dioxide, only low-temperature heat is required, which can ideally be provided by regenerative energy sources. It is therefore possible to operate the fossil-fired power plant for the generation of current without any appreciable efficiency losses.
In the separate operation of a fossil-fired power plant having a separation device and the provision of the necessary heat energy for regenerating the scrubbing agent via renewable energy sources, a more advantageous carbon dioxide balance is obtained in total. It is in this case advantageous particularly that the power plant can convert a fossil fuel at the highest technical efficiency level without any appreciable efficiency losses. Moreover, the separation plant reaches a stable operating mode more quickly in the various load states.
The heat accumulator is in this case configured in such a way that possible excess heat energy which, for example, occurs throughout the day can be intermediately stored, so that the separation device for carbon dioxide can be supplied with heat energy even when the renewable energy source temporarily cannot partially or completely make any heat energy available. This is the case in solar thermal plants outside the solar radiation time. The heat accumulator thus ensures that the separation device for carbon dioxide can be operated to a considerable extent with constant heat energy.
(Note, in the above, confirmation of the fact that Coal-fired power plants do, as a result in part of the daily flux in power demand, generate "excess heat energy", which can be accumulated, and then used in the process that separates CO2 from the CO2 absorbent. If the CO2 were then utilized in a process like that of Siemens' own "United States Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel ... Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide", we wonder what the total energy efficiency, of both systems combined, would be. And, that leads to even further considerations, as we will address in closing comments.)
By virtue of a separation device which is operated with renewable energies and is integrated in a power plant, markedly lower operating costs are to be expected. In this case, the amount of investment in generating the renewable energy is approximately the same as in the provision of process steam via the fossil-fired power plant.
A geothermal plant may ... advantageously be used for generating heat energy for the separation device. A geothermal plant can in this case be employed even in regions where there is possibly insufficient solar radiation for a solar thermal plant, although geothermal heat can be obtained from the soil. The advantage of a geothermal plant is also, in particular, the uninterrupted availability of heat.
In a further preferred refinement, the desorption unit can obtain heat energy from the steam turbine unit of the fossil-fired power plant via a further following or parallel-connected heat exchanger, so that, in the case of an insufficient supply of heat energy by the renewable energy source, heat energy from the steam turbine unit can be administered to the desorption unit. Appropriate regulating devices are provided for controlling the supply of heat. This measure therefore ensures that, even in the case of a complete or partial undersupply of heat energy via the renewable energy source, heat energy in the form of process steam from the power station process can be used for the desorption of carbon dioxide. The operating reliability of the separation device for carbon dioxide is thus increased.
According to the invention, in this case, the energy required for separating carbon dioxide is provided by renewable energies instead of from the fossil-fired power plant. This is possible because heat at a relatively low level is sufficient for regenerating the carbon dioxide solvent. This heat can ideally be provided by regenerative energy sources. As a result, the fossil-fired power plant can be operated and generate current without any appreciable efficiency losses. Moreover, the separation plant is transferred into a stable separating operation more quickly in the various operating states, even when sufficient process steam is not yet available, and therefore, in addition, carbon dioxide emissions are prevented.
Accumulator units may likewise be incorporated into the scrubbing agent circuit for the laden and the regenerated scrubbing agent, in order to react more flexibly to load changes and to bridge operating states in which sufficient heat energy for desorption cannot be provided.
For the operating situation where the separation device requires more heat energy than the renewable energy source can provide, an additional heat exchanger in the form of a sump evaporator is provided, via which additional heating steam from the power plant can be introduced into the desorption unit, so that the desorption unit can be operated at an optimal heating point.
By means of the heat exchanger, exclusive heating of the desorption unit by process steam from the power station process is also possible in a special case. A regulating device, not illustrated here, is provided for the optimal supply of the desorption unit with heat energy either from the renewable energy source or from the power plant or in combination with one another."
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In sum, by using as much environmental heat energy as might be available to us, including low-level "geothermal heat" that "can" even "be obtained from the soil", perhaps in combination with whatever excess Coal-fired power plant heat that might become available during the course of the day, we can extract Carbon Dioxide from a Coal-fired power plant's exhaust "without any appreciable efficiency losses".
And, then, since we cited our National Aeronautics and Space Administration in our opening comments, in a process like that disclosed in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | NASA Improves CO2 to Methane Conversion | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent Application 20120029095 - Sabatier Process and Apparatus for Controlling Exothermic Reaction; 2012; (Developed under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration); Abstract: A Sabatier process involving contacting carbon dioxide and hydrogen in a first reaction zone with a first catalyst bed at a temperature greater than a first designated temperature; feeding the effluent from the first reaction zone into a second reaction zone, and contacting the effluent with a second catalyst bed at a temperature equal to or less than a second designated temperature, so as to produce a product stream comprising water and methane";we can efficiently convert that Coal plant exhaust Carbon Dioxide into Methane. And, once we have the Methane, made from Coal exhaust Carbon Dioxide, as perhaps captured so efficiently by the process of our subject herein, "United States Patent Application 20130152596 - Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Station Having A Removal Apparatus For Carbon Dioxide And Process For Separating Carbon Dioxide From An Offgas From A Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Station", we can, as seen in our most recent report on the technique:
West Virginia Coal Association | US Gov Confirms Coal Can Be A CO2-Neutral Source Of Power | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 8,461,215 - Rendering Coal As An Environmentally Carbon Dioxide Neutral Fuel And A Regenerative Carbon Source; 2013; Inventors: George Olah and G.K. Surya Prakash, CA; Assignee: The University of Southern California; Abstract: The invention provides a method for rendering coal as an environmentally essentially carbon dioxide-neutral fuel. Carbon dioxide produced from coal combustion is captured, purified, combined with coalbed methane or any other natural methane or natural gas source, or with hydrogen, and reacted under reaction conditions sufficient to form methanol and/or dimethyl ether, which can be used as fuel or feedstock for derived synthetic hydrocarbons";
then react that CO2-based Methane with even more Coal exhaust CO2, and thereby synthesize the fuel alcohol, "methanol" and the substitute Diesel fuel, "dimethyl ether"; and, then, either use those valuable fuels as is, or, through known processes, use them as "feedstock for" the synthesis of "hydrocarbons".
And, that returns us to our inserted commentary, further above, concerning the efficiencies, and thus the economics, of this CO2 collection process.
As we documented in a series of reports a little more than four years ago, including, for several examples:
West Virginia Coal Association | CTL vs. Real Oil Cost | Research & Development;
West Virginia Coal Association | Coal TL vs. Hidden Oil Costs | Research & Development; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Actual Costs of Oil | Research & Development;
analyses done by some very credible people determined that the true cost of gasoline, made from imported oil, if all the "hidden" costs - - that is, the costs to our national US economy of OPEC-related military entanglements and lost US domestic employment opportunities, among other things - -, were, as they should be, factored in, would certainly be in excess of $5.00 per gallon and, arguably, as much as $15 per gallon.
And, the bulk of that is wealth simply flowing out of the country; or, it is wealth not produced.
Now, if we were to look at the overall "big" picture of our US economy, and factored in the true costs to our domestic economy of imported oil, and related that to the wealth accumulation and US job creation opportunities suggested by the concept of a domestic, US Coal Country liquid fuel production industry founded on the technical principles embodied in our earlier-reported "US Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel ... Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide; 2011; Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft" and in the subject of our discourse herein, "US Patent Application 20130152596 - Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Station Having A Removal Apparatus For Carbon Dioxide And Process For Separating Carbon Dioxide From An Offgas From A Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Station; 2013; Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft", what, do you think, the net benefit to United States Coal Country's, to the entire United States of America's, economy, even in the most general of terms, might be?
Far past time somebody did the calculus, and made public report of the results, ain't it?