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Could US Scientist's "CO2 Catcher" Help to Slow Warming?


 
More on the work at New York's Columbia University, printed in a United Kingdom newspaper, concerning the capture and use of CO2.
 
An excerpt:

"Lackner says that device works, but the "humidity switch" could slash the scrubber's energy use tenfold. He said: "We can do it coming out carbon positive."

The team is also working on ways to dispose of the pure CO2 gas produced by each scrubber.

The patent suggests the scrubber could be connected to greenhouses, where the CO2 would boost plant growth. Or the gas could be used to grow algae, for food, fertiliser or fuel. The latter could "close the carbon loop," Lackner said."

Novomer - Our Vision

 
In further support of our contention that CO2 - generated by our coal use - should be and could be a valuable raw material resource, we submit the enclosed information from Novomer, who are reducing to commercial practice the CO2 recycling technologies developed, and being developed, by Cornell University.
 
An excerpt:
 
"Novomer uses carbon dioxide as a major input in a competitively priced, precision-quality, chemical process that produces a class of uniform polymers, plastics and other chemicals."
 
Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a valuable by-product from our use of coal in the generation of power, or in the conversion of coal into liquid fuels.
 

First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved

 
Following up on our thesis that CO2 - from both coal-fired power plants and coal-to-liquid conversion factories can, and should be viewed as a recoverable, valuable by-product of coal use, not just a bothersome pollutant, we submit this article.
 
An excerpt:
 
"Global Research Technologies, LLC (GRT), a technology research and development company, and Klaus Lackner from Columbia University have achieved the successful demonstration of a bold new technology to capture carbon from the air. The "air extraction" prototype has successfully demonstrated that indeed carbon dioxide (CO2) can be captured from the atmosphere."
 
Actually, Columbia University's work, though commendable and remarkable, is not the first demonstration of artificial CO2 capture from the atmosphere itself. Regardless, though, it reinforces the contention that CO2 can be not just captured on a meaningful industrial scale, from the atmosphere, but recycled, as in the following:
 
"For example, the CO2 originating from all those vehicles in Bangkok can be captured in an oil field in Alberta, Canada, where it could be used on-site for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations or it could be captured in South Africa to feed a growing demand in that country for feed stocks for petrochemical production."
 
The technology is "here". All that's lacking is the public awareness of it, and the national will to use it.
 

Japanese Researchers Pave Way for Artificial Photosynthesis - Tech-On!

 
A brief excerpt:
 
"A Japanese research group saw its way clear to the practical application of ruthenium-rhenium (Ru-Re) supramolecular complex as a photocatalyst that uses sunlight to reduce CO2 to CO, which can be used as a chemical engineering material."
 
The technologies to capture, and profitably use, Carbon Dioxide are being developed and implemented worldwide. Moreover, those technologies are being refined and advanced to make them more efficient, to reduce the energy inputs needed to accomplish them. CO2 is becoming what it should be: A valuable by-product of coal use.
 

Perdaman Industries - The Economist


 
An excerpt:
 
" Perdaman plans to utilise environmentally friendly, best in class technologies that will transform sub-bituminous coal into urea by way of innovative and low emissions coal gasification technology,"
 
To emphasize a few, important, points:
 
They will be making the urea from - relative to WV bituminous coal - low-organic and high-ash Australian, sub-bituminous, lignite.
 
As we've noted as being possible, the conversion of coal to liquid chemicals and fuel, via several gasification and direct liquefaction processes, can be accomplished in an "environmentally friendly" way, with low emissions.
 
CTL is real, it is practical. It can be an environmentally sound, even beneficial, industrial process.