Klaus Lackner,
Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University.
The paper cited above was delivered by Klaus Lackner at a Rutgers conference.
If you do even a perfunctory literature search, you'll find that Professor Lackner is a potent intellectual presence in his fields of specialty. We have cited him previously, and, for us, it generates a satisfying sense of validity to be able to quote him again in support of our theses, as in the abstract, below:
"Abstract
We describe a technology for capturing CO2 directly from ambient air (air capture) at collection rates that far exceed those of trees or other photosynthesizing organisms and at costs that would allow the widespread use of air capture in managing the anthropogenic carbon cycle and combating climate change. The specific technology uses anionic exchange resins in a sorbent swing between a carbonate and bicarbonate form. Once the resin is saturated with CO2, the gas is driven off the resin by exposure to moisture. This humidity swing allows for an extremely energy efficient implementation of carbon dioxide capture. Air capture becomes the CO2 capture of last resort. It can compensate for all those emissions that otherwise would accumulate in the atmosphere by removing a net amount of CO2 from the air that matches a specific emission at a different location and time. At a large scale, air capture can reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and undo the current excursion in greenhouse gas concentrations much faster than natural processes. Finally, the capture of CO2 enables the closure of the carbon cycle by recapturing CO2 and making it the chemical feedstock that provides carbon for fuel synthesis. (Note, again: "CO2...the chemical feedstock ... for fuel synthesis. - JtM) The other inputs are water, which provides hydrogen, and energy from a source that is carbon-free (How's about a hydroelectric generator installed, as in New Martinsville, WV, in analready-existing navigation dam? - JtM).
As we've been saying: CO2 - generated from our use of coal, whether we employ that coal to generate power or to synthesize liquid fuels and chemicals - is a valuable by-product of that coal use. We shouldn't be wasting it, or money, by pumping it all down geological storage rat holes. We can use it to make more liquid fuels.