CO2 Conserves Coal - Canada

 
"Before utilities, oil and coal producers, industrial process companies and
energy agencies commit any more money to studying the underground burial
of carbon-dioxide emissions, they ought to talk to Viva Cundliffe. The
British Columbia-based environmental engineer has spent five years
investigating and demonstrating how carbon dioxide could be recycled."

 
As we, and others we've cited, have been saying: The potential exists to recycle the Carbon Dioxide co-product of our coal-use industries. "Before utilities, oil and coal producers, industrial process companies and
energy agencies commit any more money to studying the underground burial of carbon-dioxide emissions..." we all need to step back and re-evaluate our focus. We shouldn't spend any more money and time on figuring out how to bury our CO2, or how, through Cap & Trade, to tax the coal industry into oblivion. Instead, researchers, like these we note herein, in Canada, and others we've cited in Japan, Germany, Korea and in the United States, need to be funded and promoted.
 
Additional excerpts:

    ""We recycle plastic, why shouldn't we recycle carbon?" she asks
rhetorically in an interview. "I am demonstrating a more sustainable and
carbon-negative solution that has lower costs, treats carbon as an asset,
and could extend the life of coal resources by up to 10 times."
 
(Note: "treats carbon as an asset" and "extend the life of coal resources". Aren't those good things?  - JtM)

   " Around the world, utilities, oil companies, energy agencies and industrial
companies are collectively spending billions of dollars to investigate and
prove various types of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)
technologies."

   ""I am trying to signal to the industry that it's cheaper to recycle carbon
than to store it," Cundliffe says. "Companies should beware of the
potential liabilities of long-term contracts to bury carbon dioxide,
including loss of access and control.""
 
(Note, as we've been saying: "it's cheaper to recycle carbon than to store it"; or, than to tax, through Cap&Trade, coal-production and coal-use industries out of existence.)

    "Cundliffe, President of Strategic Visionary Alternatives Limited
(Kamloops, British Columbia), has held one pre-commercial demonstration
of her technology at a commercial property located in south-central
British Columbia. The company, which has received funding from private
sources, governments and non-governmental organizations, filed a global
patent application on the technology this past April."

    "Strategic Visionary Alternatives technology, called "Green Carbon," is a
post-combustion technology that uses heat and special catalysts to split
carbon dioxide into its constituent parts -- carbon and oxygen. The
carbon, captured as a fine powder not unlike pulverized coal, could
either be re-injected into the combustion chamber for burning or captured
in pelletized form for use elsewhere."

    "The pure carbon would have a British thermal unit (BTU) value that is 15%
higher than Western coal, she says: "It is basically the same BTU value as
metallurgical-grade coal with no impurities.""
 
Although this isn't the processing of CO2 into additional liquid fuel, as has, through several processes we've documented, been demonstrated,  we do get a very high-grade metallurgical "coal" - which should carry a premium price - and, pure Oxygen.
 
As we've tediously repeated, our use of coal doesn't create pollutants, but by-products. Herein is explained how we can recycle one of those by-products, Carbon Dioxide, to, in essence, more coal.
 
We need to stop wasting time and money trying to figure out how to dispose of CO2, or how to tax the coal industries out of existence because of it, and just start using coal's by-products to our benefit. It can be done, and we can thereby "extend the life of coal resources by up to 10 times".

CO2 for Fuel Production

 
We herein forward links to, as with the Congressional records of coal liquefaction technologies we sent you, a database of information that is too large for us, in our penurious circumstances, with our minimal computer communications capacity, to effectively manage and excerpt/edit for inclusion in the Coal Association R&D Blog.
 
Should you spend some time exploring it, and we hope you do, you will find that, as we've been reporting, multiple technologies exist which would allow us to recycle the CO2 by-product of our coal use and transform it effectively in more liquid transportation fuels - among other things.
 
Other researchers we've discovered in our efforts are now even suggesting, as we have previously, that CO2 recycling would not only help to mitigate the issue of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but would also help us to conserve our seemingly vast coal resources. There are more valuable uses to which coal can be applied than to the manufacture of liquid fuels. We've reported on a few of those applications, some of which are now in commercial practice, with more on the way. We will remind you that the Chinese, though much has been made of their truly massive coal-to-liquid industrialization, publicly state that the bulk of their CTL production will be devoted to things that are actually useful in the grander scheme, such as plastics and fertilizers.
 
As follows:
 

"CO2 Mitigation and Fuel Production - 1997

Steinberg, Meyer

Brookhaven National Lab

In the pdf format this document has 19 pages and is 859kb

Table of Contents

Abstract iii
List of Figures vi
List of Tables ix

1

 Introduction 1

2

 The Hydrocarb Process 1

3

 The Hynol Process 2

4

 The Carnol Process 3

5

 Carnol Process Design 4

6

 Methanol as an Automotive Fuel 4

7

 Economics of Carnol Process 4

8

 CO2 Emission Evaluation of Entire Carnol System 5

9

 Conclusions 7

10

 References 8"
 
We encourage you to explore this information. We believe we've cited Meyer Steinberg previously, and will do so again in some follow-up dispatches. And, we'll note that methanol is often mentioned, in this and other reports, as an end product of CO2 conversion. Methanol is a very serviceable liquid fuel in it's own right. But, it can be converted into gasoline, and has other, quite valuable, applications as a feed for plastics and chemicals manufacturing.

CO2 Recycling: "Carnol" Process Converts CO2 into Ethanol

 
More from Meyer Steinberg, at Brookhaven National Laboratory, on the Carnol Process for the recycling of Carbon Dioxide into liquid fuels.
 
The excerpt: 

"Document title

The carnol process for CO2 mitigation from power plants and the transportation sector

Author

STEINBERG M.

Affiliation

Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, ETATS-UNIS

Abstract

A CO2 mitigation process is developed which converts waste CO2, primarily recovered from coal-fired power plant stack gases with natural gas, to produce methanol as a liquid fuel and coproduct carbon as a materials commodity. The Carnol process chemistry consists of methane decomposition to produce hydrogen which is catalytically reacted with the recovered waste CO2 to produce methanol. The carbon is either stored or sold as a materials commodity. A process design is modelled and mass and energy balances are presented as a function of reactor pressure and temperature conditions. The Carnol process is a viable alternative to sequestering CO2 in the ocean for purposes of reducing CO2 emissions from coal burning power plants. Over 90% of the CO2 from the coal burning plant is used in the process which results in a net CO2 emission reduction of over 90% compared to that obtained for conventional methanol production by steam reforming of methane. Methanol as an alternative liquid fuel for automotive engines and for fuel cells achieves additional CO2 emission reduction benefits. The economics of the process is greatly enhanced when carbon can be sold as a materials commodity. Improvement in process design and economics should be achieved by developing a molten metal (tin) methane decomposition reactor and a liquid phase, slurry catalyst, methanol synthesis reactor directly using the solvent saturated with CO2 scrubbed from the power plant stack gases. The benefits of the process warrants its further development."
 
Mike, perhaps the quote: "The Carnol process is a viable alternative to sequestering CO2 in the ocean for purposes of reducing CO2 emissions from coal burning power plants."
 
From our own, US, Brookhaven National Laboratory, we learn that it makes more sense to recycle the Carbon Dioxide arising from our use of coal, whether we burn that coal for power or convert it into liquid fuels, and use that CO2 to make more liquid fuel.
 
Brookhaven proposes, as have others, that methane be used as the Hydrogen source for hydrogenating Carbon extracted from CO2. Chemically, it might take less energy to make the Hydrogen available from methane, and perhaps methane's own Carbon content could be incorporated into the resulting methanol. We don't know. But, methane gas is not the only potential source of Hydrogen for synthesizing liquid hydrocarbons from CO2. As we've elsewhere documented, botanical materials can provide it; or, it can be electrolyzed from water. Other researchers have suggested the use of various, easily-compounded acids as Hydrogen donors.
 
And, note: "Over 90% of the CO2 from the coal burning plant is used in the process ...".
 
Do current CO2 sequestration technologies achieve that degree of CO2 capture? Even if they do, doesn't it make more sense to recycle the captured CO2 into more liquid fuels, rather than force our coal-use industries to pay to pump it down geologic storage rat holes, many of which are located and designed to help subsidize, at the coal industry's expense, the recovery of residual petroleum for the oil industry?
 
More on the Carnol Process for the conversion of Carbon Dioxide into methanol will follow. But, keep in mind that methanol, a fine liquid fuel in it's own right, can be converted, once it is synthesized from CO2, through established commercial processes, such as ExxonMobil's "MTG" technology, into gasoline.
 

Wyoming: Coal to Diesel Project


 
We've reported on this Wyoming CTL project previously, but thought we should send this update along.
 
An excerpt:

"COAL TO DIESEL PROJECT

This part of the project is already underway in Carbon County and will use technology from several providers including: GE Infrastructure Technology LLC patented and proprietary coal gasification technology and Rentech, Inc of Denver Fischer Tropsch technology.

The diesel produced will be taken and marketed by Sinclair Oil Corporation.

There will be a surplus of clean power produced at the plant, amounting to around 45MW in the initial phases and this will be sold to local electricity suppliers. Carbon dioxide will be sequestered via pipeline, sulphur will be solidified and sold to the agricultural market, hydrogen may also be produced from surplus syn gas."

We're glad they're capturing the sulfur for commercial use, as we've documented to be feasible. But, as we've explained, "sequestering" CO2 is short-sighted and wasteful. It, too, through different processing options, could be transformed into liquid fuel.

But, make note of the fact that, as they generate liquid fuel, they will be co-generating surplus electric power as another profitable by-product.

Japan Tames CO2 Godizilla

 
 
Materials for global carbon dioxide recycling
 
Herein more from our Seven Samurai Plus 3 on how to tame the Carbon Dioxide Godzilla and compel him to plow our fields:

"K. Hashimoto, M. Yamasaki, S. Meguro, T. Sasaki, H. Katagiri, K. Izumiya, N. Kumagai, H. Habazaki, E. Akiyama and K. Asami

Tohoku Institute of Technology, Sendai 982-8588, Japan

Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan

Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Ichihara 290-8601, Japan

Daiki Engineering Co. Ltd., 11 Shintoyofuta, Kashiwa 277-8511, Japan

Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-8682, Japan

National Research Institute for Metals, Sengen, Tsukuba 305-0047, Japan

Abstract

CO2 emissions, which induce global warming, increase with the development of economic activity. It is impossible to decrease the CO2 emissions by suppression of the economic activity. Global CO2 recycling can solve this problem. The global CO2 recycling consists of three district: The electricity is generated by solar cells on deserts. At desert coasts, the electricity is used for H2 production by seawater electrolysis and H2 is used for CH4 production by the reaction with CO2. CH4 which is the main component of liquefied natural gas is liquefied and transported to energy consuming districts where CO2 is recovered, liquefied and transported to the desert coasts. A CO2 recycling plant for substantiation of our idea has been built on the roof of the Institute for Materials Research in 1996. Key materials necessary for the global CO22 conversion. All of them have been tailored by us. They have very high activity and selectivity for necessary reactions in addition to excellent durability. A pilot plant consisting of minimum units in an industrial scale is going to be built in three years." recycling are the anode and cathode for seawater electrolysis and the catalyst for CO

Note this from the abstract: "It is impossible to decrease CO2 emissions by suppression of the economic activity."

It is a categorical statement. But, we should all instinctively recognize the essential truth within it, and stop trying to "decrease", or punish through taxation, the co-production of Carbon Dioxide. Instead, we can decrease, not the emissions of CO2, but, it's concentrations in our atmosphere by the stimulation of an economic activity: The recovery of atmospheric CO2, and the recycling of it into more liquid fuels and useful chemicals.