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We have reported on, and made frequent reference to, "bi-reforming" and "tri-reforming" technologies, wherein Carbon Dioxide is reacted with Methane to synthesize higher, liquid hydrocarbons, such as Methanol.
We have also thoroughly documented, and will further report, that the needed Methane can itself be synthesized, either from Carbon Dioxide, via the century-old Sabatier process now being more fully developed by NASA, and by various corporate contractors in service to the USDOD; or, from Coal, using processes of Steam, or "hydro", gasification.
We have suggested, with the resultant taking of offense in some quarters, that the legislative "push" to capture the Carbon Dioxide arising from our smokestacks and then ship it to West Texas for "sequestration" in leaky old oil fields, all at the expense of our vital Coal-use industries and their customers, was a veiled attempt to, simply, swipe a valuable raw material resource from us Coal mining rubes resident in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the rest of US Coal Country.
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We have many times reported on, and made reference to, the "Tri-reforming" technology developed by Penn State University, wherein reclaimed flue-gas Carbon Dioxide is reacted with Methane to synthesize higher, and commercially valuable, hydrocarbons.
We have, of course, documented, and will further document, that the needed Methane can be synthesized, via the 1912 Nobel-winning Sabatier process, from Carbon Dioxide; or, via processes of Steam gasification, from Coal.
What we just recently discovered, however, is that the development of Penn State's technology for the recycling of Carbon Dioxide was paid for, at least in part, by us.
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In an earlier dispatch, we made report of the 1973 US Patent 3,740,193, "Hydrogen Production by Catalytic Steam Gasification of Carbonaceous Materials".
In that patent, Esso, before they were officially Exxon, explained how we could get all the Hydrogen we needed for both, as they stated specifically, "the refining of petroleum and for the production of synthetic fuels" by the Steam gasification of, among other things, Coal.
In this report, we further document Exxon's intensive development of related processes for obtaining the Hydrogen needed to hydrogenate and liquefy Coal, as one integrated function of a complete Coal conversion process, from reactions between Coal and Steam.
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Wednesday, we sent you more confirmation that Carbon Dioxide could be recycled into hydrocarbons, when added to a process of indirect Coal conversion, wherein Coal is gasified with Steam to more efficiently generate an hydrogenated synthesis gas, in our report of "United States Patent 4,162,959 - Production of Hydrogenated Hydrocarbons", which was assigned, in 1979, to California's Occidental Petroleum.
Herein, we see that Occidental Petroleum had, prior to that invention, actually been at work for some time on the development of Coal, and Carbon, conversion technologies.
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We have previously, on several occasions, documented the Carbon conversion activities of Shell Oil, who are currently, at Bintulu, Malaysia, as we've reported, developing a facility that will convert both natural gas and a synthesis gas, derived from lignite Coal, into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Like some other Big Oil operators, it now seems, Shell has been at work for a long time on the development of Coal liquefaction and Carbon conversion technologies, and we herein submit a report on one of their achievements, with more to follow.
Again as with some other petroleum companies, Shell's Coal conversion paper trail has turned out to be extended and complicated; presenting a significant challenge to our disabled capacities. We apologize, in advance, for replications and redundancies that might present as we attempt to plow through it all, in as orderly a fashion as we are able to manage.
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