In further support of our thesis that Carbon Dioxide is a potentially-valuable by-product arising from our use of coal, we submit this information on research originating from the University of Calgary, Canada.
Herein, it's demonstrated that Carbon Dioxide can be efficiently, economically captured, even from the atmosphere itself, and thereby made available for use, such as in the documented processes whereby it can be used in the synthesis of more liquid fuel.
The excerpt:
"U of C scientist captures global-warming gas directly from the air; technology could reduce emissions from transportation
In research conducted at the U of C, Keith - ( David Keith, Director, ISEEE Energy and Environmental Systems Group; Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and Department of Economics, University of Calgary; Adjunct Professor Department of EPP, Carnegie Mellon) - and a team of researchers showed it is possible to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming – using a relatively simple machine that can capture the trace amount of CO2 present in the air at any place on the planet.
The research is significant because air capture technology is the only way to capture CO2 emissions from transportation sources such as vehicles and airplanes. These so-called diffuse sources represent more than half of the greenhouse gases emitted on Earth.
(As we've earlier documented, natural sources, primarily the processes of volcanism, emit far more CO2 than all human activities combined - but that's not the point of this discussion. - JtM)
Keith and his team showed they could capture CO2 directly from the air with less than 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity per tonne of carbon dioxide. Their custom-built tower was able to capture the equivalent of about 20 tonnes per year of CO2 on a single square metre of scrubbing material – the average amount of emissions that one person produces each year in the North American-wide economy.
“This means that if you used electricity from a coal-fired power plant, for every unit of electricity you used to operate the capture machine, you’d be capturing 10 times as much CO2 as the power plant emitted making that much electricity,” Keith says."
Not explained well in this particular news release is the fact that Keith's invention uses NaOH - i.e. sodium hydroxide, lye - which reacts with CO2 to yield carbonates and bicarbonates of sodium, which, in turn, have various commercial uses.
Note that Keith's invention - it is in the process of being patented - does not, as do other CO2 reclamation technologies, lead to the synthesis of additional liquid fuels and useful organic chemicals.
It does, however, enable the commercial extraction of dilute CO2 from the atmosphere in a practical process, wherein the extraction procedure itself results in the production of end use products. It is an evolution of efficiency in Carbon Dioxide recycling.
And, it thereby enables "remote" siting, or placement, of the CO2 collection facilities. Power plants and Coal-to-Liquid facilities, for instance, would not have to undergo expensive retrofitting with new carbon capture equipment - a separate facility for that purpose could be set up nearby, or even a thousand miles away, and the extracted CO2 "assigned" to a specific power generator or CTL converter as carbon credits.
