In our report of yesterday, "CO2 to Synfuel Production Ship", we documented that, back in 1986, our US Government had issued Patent 4,568,522 to Grumman Aerospace, for the invention of a "vessel ... with means for producing and storing synthetic fuel generated from ...carbon dioxide".
Herein, in what might be a repeat of an even earlier report, we see that Grumman's invention was actually based on a CO2 recycling innovation they, and their scientists, had accomplished five years previously.
Our understanding of the available literature is that the lead inventor named in this US Patent, John Sudbury, who passed away earlier this year, was a chemical engineer who actually started out, in 1949, working for Continental Oil Company.
He seems to have been transferred to Consolidation Coal Company, Consol, sometime after Continental acquired them in 1966.
In any case, while at Consol, he, and another Consol Coal conversion scientist, whom we have cited for you previously, devised a way to accomplish something we have, from other sources, documented to be feasible:
We have several times, in the course of our reportage, made reference to the unicorn we reveal herein.
Almost fully one quarter of a century ago, our United States Government, through the Patent Office, confirmed that Carbon Dioxide could be effectively recycled into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Carbon Dioxide can be so efficiently recycled via the technology disclosed herein, that, not only could individual vehicles be made self-sufficient in their supply of liquid fuel, but, a ship could be built which would be able supply an entire fleet with liquid hydrocarbons made out of nothing but Water and Carbon Dioxide.
Rights to the United States Patent we report herein are assigned to Conoco, in Connecticut. But, separate web-based sources clearly identify the named inventor as being, or as having been, at the time the patent was issued, an employee of Consolidation Coal Company, at their facility in Library, PA.
That said, we herein submit even additional evidence of two facts we have previously, from multiple sources, documented:
The still-carbonaceous residues, left by an initial and primary process of Coal conversion into hydrocarbons, can themselves be further treated to extract even more hydrocarbon values; and,
Water, in the form of Steam, can be used as the source of Hydrogen for Carbon hydrogenation.
In our recent report of November 22, concerning "US Patent 4,011,153", a technology for the "Liquefaction and Desulfurization of Coal", it was disclosed that US Government scientists working in Pennsylvania had, all the way back in 1977, developed a process they summarized, simply, as a way of "desulfurizing and liquefying coal", with the end result being clean liquid hydrocarbons.
Presuming you to have read that dispatch, and without reproducing the specifics, we remind you that a key chemical agent which could, among others, be used in that process, to hydrogenate and liquefy Coal, was the compound, "Sodium Formate".
Herein, we submit evidence that such use of Sodium Formate represents a clear opportunity for the somewhat direct recycling, through multiple channels, of Carbon Dioxide in a Coal liquefaction process.