New York City CO2 Recycling Patent Application

  
A few days ago, we submitted documentation, in our report of  the "Development of an Improved Sabatier Reactor", about a presentation made at the ASME Conference on Environmental Systems, back in 1979, by US Department of Defense contractors United Technologies, that our own government has most likely known now for more than thirty years that Carbon Dioxide can be converted into Methane.
 
Of course, as we've tediously documented, Europe's Nobel Committee has known that since 1912.
 
That's when the original "Sabatier Reactor" that converts CO2 to Methane, which our Defense contractors were working, in the 1970's, to improve, became, or should have become, public knowledge.
 
We have also, from other sources, including Penn State University, documented technologies wherein Carbon Dioxide can be recycled, through it's use as a raw material in the synthesis of even higher, liquid hydrocarbons.

Mobil 1977 Coal to High-Octane Gasoline

 
Our headline does not really do justice to this pre-merger Mobil technology for Coal conversion.
 
As we have reported to be feasible and practical in other, similar, Coal technologies we have documented for you, Mobil are herein obtaining not only Gasoline from Coal, but, in addition, a synthetic "natural" gas consisting primarily of Methane.
 
We remind you that, In an earlier dispatch, we reported "United States Patent 4,046,830 - Upgrading Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Products", which was awarded to Mobil Oil Corporation, in September of 1977, for an improvement on technology that converts Coal into Gasoline.
 
In this report, we begin to see, and as we will see in reports to follow in coming days, with advance apologies for any repetition that might occur relative to other, earlier dispatches, that the year 1977, and the month of September specifically, should have been hallmarked by headlines of hope on all of the newspapers throughout United States Coal Country.

South Africa Reduces & Recycles CO2


 
We have, in the course of our dispatches over the past few years, frequently documented and referred to the achievements of South Africa in the conversion of Coal into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
 
Their petrochemical giant, SASOL, South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited, operates multiple Coal liquefaction facilities, and supplies a large percentage of that nation's liquid fuel needs with them.
 
Since SASOL is a dominant force in South Africa's economy, and since Coal is one of that nation's most important natural resources, the various institutions of higher learning in South Africa have, to a greater or lesser degree, interacted with SASOL, exchanged personnel with them, and supported them with research and development.

Standard Oil 1951 Liquid & Gas from Coal

 
Again from more than half a century ago, we cite both Standard Oil and our United States Government in support of the fact that whether we need Gasoline or "Natural" Gas, we can make them both from Coal.
 
And, better, we can make them both as co-products originating from a fully-integrated, self-sufficient Coal gasification and liquefaction industrial process.

Exxon Coal + Steam = Liquids + Methane

 
The technology described herein by Exxon is more than a little complicated. But, a study of it confirms that they are utilizing, and thereby validating several Coal conversion procedures and reactions about which we have earlier reported, and which we have, from other sources, documented to be feasible and practical.
 
In essence, they are hydrogenating raw Coal with free Hydrogen to synthesize and extract hydrocarbon liquids and gases.
 
However, they are obtaining that Hydrogen, along with some supplemental Carbon Monoxide, from the Steam reforming of Methane, which itself is synthesized via the Steam gasification of the Char, or carbonaceous residue, left behind by the hydrogenation of the raw Coal.