United States Patent Application: 0130256123
Trick or Treat!
It's Halloween.
If you reside in US Coal Country, don't be surprised if, when you respond to the doorbell or a knock this evening, you find yourself confronted by a suspiciously older-looking group, with beards that might or might not be fake, dressed in the turbans, kaftans and billowing robes of desert sheiks.
And, don't be alarmed. You should be able to tell from the bling on their fingers and the Rolls Royce idling in wait for them at the curb that they don't want or need much from you. Not even the bits of generic caramel you bought for the trick-or-treaters out of the bulk bin down at the local dollar store - - that being all you can afford since your spouse got laid off at the Coal mine because Cap and Trade CO2 taxes shut down the local power plant, and you since can barely afford the gas as it is to get back and forth to your new minimum wage job behind the counter down at the Quickie Burger.
All they want is something your own government wants to tax you for until you get rid of it anyway:
Carbon Dioxide.
If you give them all of your CO2, even if you have to pump some back up from the well out behind shed, where your government forced you to, all at your expense, "sequester" some of it, they'll go away smiling.
Why will they go away smiling?
Because, before too long, the next time you stop on your way to your job down at the Quickie Burger to throw five bucks worth of gas into that rusted-out old Chevy Vega your dad left you, you'll be buying that Carbon Dioxide back from them.
As we've already documented in, for just a few examples:
West Virginia Coal Association | Saudi Arabia and Texas CO2 to Hydrocarbon Syngas | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 8,288,446 - Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 into Syngas Mixture; October 16, 2012; Inventors: Agaddin Mamedov, Texas, and Abdulaziz Al-Jodai, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia;
Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Riyadh; Abstract: The invention relates to a process of making a syngas mixture containing hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, comprising a step of contacting a gaseous feed mixture containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a catalyst, wherein the catalyst substantially consists of chromia/alumina. This process enables hydrogenation of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide with high selectivity ... . The process can be applied separately, but can also be combined with other processes, for example up-stream with other synthesis processes for making products like aliphatic oxygenates, olefins or aromatics. The invention relates to a catalytic process for producing a syngas mixture from carbon dioxide ... with a chromium-containing catalyst. Syngas is successfully used as synthetic fuel and also in a number of chemical processes, such as synthesis of methanol ... . A further advantage of the process according to the invention is that the stoichiometric number (SN) of the syngas mixture obtained can be varied over a wide range (thus) making it possible to apply the syngas mixture obtained as a starting material in the synthesis of various other products; like alkanes, such as ethane, propane and iso-butane; aldehydes; ethers like dimethylether; or alcohols such as methanol"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Saudi Arabia 4th of July CO2 to Hydrocarbons | Research & Development; concerning: "US Patent Application 20130168966 - Method for Conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Hydrocarbons; July 4, 2013; Inventors: Mazen Abdullah Ba-Abbad, et. al., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Assignee: King Saud University, Riyadh; Abstract: The present invention relates to a method for converting carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons";
Saudi Arabia has been diligently at work developing the technologies needed to convert Carbon Dioxide, as harvested from whatever convenient source, including no doubt from their under-informed and news-deprived American dupes, into anything, quite literally anything, any "hydrocarbons", they now pump up from beneath their desert sands.
And, herein, we see that Saudi Arabia has - - in addition to the technology represented by the above "United States Patent 8,288,446 - Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 into Syngas Mixture", wherein CO2 is first converted into Carbon Monoxide as one component of a "Syngas Mixture", that is, synthesis gas, a blend of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen which can then be catalytically, chemically condensed, via processes such as the nearly-ancient and almost generic Fischer-Tropsch synthesis into a full range of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons - - also been at work refining and improving alternative processes of Carbon Dioxide utilization and chemical synthesis represented by and very much like that initially developed long ago by our US Government, as we reported for one example in:
West Virginia Coal Association | USDOE 1976 Atmospheric CO2 to Methanol | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 3,959,094 - Electrolytic Synthesis of Methanol from CO2; 1976; Assignee: The United States of America; A method and system for synthesizing methanol from the CO2 in air using electric power. The CO2 is absorbed by a solution of KOH to form K2CO3 which is electrolyzed to produce methanol, a liquid hydrocarbon fuel. In accordance with a preferred embodiment of this invention, a solution of KOH is employed to absorb CO2 from air forming an aqueous solution of K2CO3, the solution is then electrolyzed to produce CH3OH (i.e., Methanol) and reform KOH in solution, the CH3OH is then removed, and make-up water is then added prior to repeating the aforementioned steps. Other products ... are also formed which can be separated and recovered as valuable products. By the process described above, it is seen that any source of electrical power may be employed, such as coal-fired power plants. However, from an environmental point of view ... solar energy generated power, would be preferred".
Comment and an additional example of Saudi Arabian improvements in Carbon Dioxide utilization technology, follow excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to the recent:
"United States Patent Application 20130256123 - Electrocatalyst for Electrochemical Conversion of Carbon Dioxide
West Virginia Coal Association | Penn State Seeks CO2 Recycling Patent | Research & Development;concerning: "US Patent Application 20100213046 - Nanotube ... Photocatalytic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide; 2010; Inventors: Craig Grimes, et. al., PA; Assignee: The Penn State Research Foundation; Abstract: Nitrogen-doped titania nanotubes exhibiting catalytic activity on exposure to any one or more of ultraviolet, visible, and/or infrared radiation, or combinations thereof are disclosed. The nanotube arrays may be co-doped with one or more nonmetals and may further include co-catalyst nanoparticles. Also, methods are disclosed for use of nitrogen-doped titania nanotubes in catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide alone or in admixture with hydrogen-containing gases such as water vapor and/or other reactants as may be present or desirable into products such as hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon-containing products, hydrogen and hydrogen-containing products, carbon monoxide and other carbon-containing products, or combinations thereof";
the utility of "copper" in combination with "titania nanotubes" for the conversion of CO2 and H2O into various "hydrocarbons" and other products, has been established as well a little closer to home.
Other differences between "United States Patent Application 20130256124" and "United States Patent Application 20130256123" seem to lie in the distribution of the product mix, with the catalyst and process of "20130256124" resulting in the co-production, with Methanol, of rather more Carbon Monoxide as opposed to "20130256123" resulting in the co-production of rather more substitute natural gas Methane.
Either way, they're valuable products to have, especially with the potential for converting Carbon Monoxide, via things like the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
In any case, Saudi Arabia again confirms a fact all of us resident in US Coal Country had better realize, accept and put to work for all of us, for the entire USA, before someone dressed up in an Uncle Sam costume comes around trick-or-treating, and holding out a treat bag labeled "Carbon Taxes".
Or, before we have to dress up any more of our children in soldier, sailor and airmen outfits, and send off to the Persian Gulf.
Carbon Dioxide, as it arises in only a small way, relative to some un-taxable sources of emission, such as the Earth's inexorable processes of planetary volcanism, from our essential use of Coal in the generation of truly abundant and truly affordable electric power, is a valuable raw material resource.
According to Saudi Arabia herein, we can reclaim Carbon Dioxide from whatever convenient source, and then efficiently convert that Carbon Dioxide into "hydrocarbons, such as methanol".