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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.
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"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."
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.
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."
""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.""
" 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.""
"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".
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Chemical Recycling of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol and Dimethyl Ether: From Greenhouse Gas to Renewable, Environmentally Carbon Neutral Fuels and Synthetic Hydrocarbons
It should be getting plain as day that the Carbon Dioxide co-produced by our coal utilization - whether coal is employed to generate power or to synthesize much-needed liquid fuels and industrial chemicals - is a valuable by-product of our coal use; and, we should thus focus some dedicated attention on establishing the infrastructure we need to reclaim and utilize it.
The excerpt:
"George A. Olah, Alain Goeppert and G. K. Surya Prakash
[Unable to display image]Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, University Park, Los Angeles, California 90089-1661
J. Org. Chem., 2009, 74 (2), pp 487–498
DOI: 10.1021/jo801260f
Publication Date (Web): December 8, 2008
Copyright © 2008 American Chemical Society
Nature’s photosynthesis uses the sun’s energy with chlorophyll in plants as a catalyst to recycle carbon dioxide and water into new plant life. Only given sufficient geological time can new fossil fuels be formed naturally. In contrast, chemical recycling of carbon dioxide from natural and industrial sources as well as varied human activities or even from the air itself to methanol or dimethyl ether (DME) and their varied products can be achieved via its capture and subsequent reductive hydrogenative conversion. The present Perspective reviews this new approach and our research in the field over the last 15 years. Carbon recycling represents a significant aspect of our proposed Methanol Economy. Any available energy source (alternative energies such as solar, wind, geothermal, and atomic energy) can be used for the production of needed hydrogen and chemical conversion of CO2. Improved new methods for the efficient reductive conversion of CO2 to methanol and/or DME that we have developed include bireforming with methane and ways of catalytic or electrochemical conversions. Liquid methanol is preferable to highly volatile and potentially explosive hydrogen for energy storage and transportation. Together with the derived DME, they are excellent transportation fuels for internal combustion engines (ICE) and fuel cells as well as convenient starting materials for synthetic hydrocarbons and their varied products. Carbon dioxide thus can be chemically transformed from a detrimental greenhouse gas causing global warming into a valuable, renewable and inexhaustible carbon source of the future allowing environmentally neutral use of carbon fuels and derived hydrocarbon products."
We've made mention of George Olah, and his work at the Loker Institute, previously. We bet even this good ole' Southern California beach boy would agree with us West Virginia hillbillies that our Carbon Dioxide is a valuable raw material resource. We shouldn't be wasting time and money stuffing it all down geologic sequestration rat holes to subsidize Big Oil's petroleum scavenging; or, attempting, through crooked Cap & Trade schemes, to tax the coal-based industries, and the good people who depend for their livelihoods on those coal-based industries, out of existence.
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Here we have some research performed by one of our own, US, institutions of higher learning, and a respected one at that, confirming, as we've been reporting from other credible sources, that there are, indeed, cost-effective ways to capture the Carbon Dioxide by-product of our coal use, and to then convert it into valuable, much-needed, liquid transportation fuels.
The excerpt:
"Selective Solar-Driven Reduction of CO2 to Methanol Using a Catalyzed p-GaP Based Photoelectrochemical Cell
Emily E. Barton, David M. Rampulla and Andrew B. Bocarsly
[Unable to display image]Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2008, 130 (20), pp 6342–6344
DOI: 10.1021/ja0776327
Publication Date (Web): April 26, 2008
Copyright © 2008 American Chemical Society
With rising atmospheric CO2 levels, there has been increasing interest in artificial photosynthetic schemes for converting this greenhouse gas into valuable fuels and small organics. Photoelectrochemical schemes for activating the inert CO2 molecule, however, operate at excessive overpotentials and thus do not convert actual light energy to chemical energy. Here we describe the selective conversion of CO2 to methanol at a p-GaP semiconductor electrode with a homogeneous pyridinium ion catalyst, driving the reaction with light energy to yield faradaic efficiencies near 100% at potentials well below the standard potential."
Methanol, as all should by now know, is an excellent liquid fuel in it's own right; and, it can, through at least one established and commercialized process, be converted into gasoline.
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We've introduced you to the work at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Meyer Steinberg's postulations, concerning the capture and use of Carbon Dioxide as a raw material which can be used to make more liquid fuels.
Herein, two of Steinberg's BNL colleagues address the same issue.
The excerpt:
(Please note that this excerpt, as is true of many we present you, was heavily footnoted with original literature references. For the sake of clarity and efficiency in transmission, we remove those footnotes and associated links. We urge you to log, through the primary links we do enclose, onto the web sites themselves so that you can avail yourself of all the information available.)
"Carbon Dioxide as a Feedstock
Carol Creutz and Etsuko Fujita
Brookhaven National Laboratory
This chapter is an overview on the subject of carbon dioxide as a starting material for organic syntheses of potential commercial interest and the utilization of carbon dioxide as a substrate for fuel production. It draws extensively on literature sources, particularly the report of a 1999 workshop on the subject of catalysis in CO2 utilization, but with emphasis on systems of most interest to us.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is an abundant (750 billion tons of carbon in the atmosphere) but dilute source of carbon (only 0.036% by volume), so technologies for utilization at the production source are crucial for both sequestration and utilization. Sequestration—such as pumping CO2 into the seas or the earth—is beyond the scope of this chapter, except where it overlaps utilization—for example, in converting CO2 to polymers. Yet sequestration dominates current thinking on short term solutions to global warming, as should be clear from reports of this and other workshops. (By extrapolation, geologic sequestration of CO2 is short-sighted.) The net anthropogenic increase of 13,000 million tons of carbon dioxide estimated to be added to the atmosphere annually at present can be compared to the 110 million tons of CO2 used to produce chemicals, chiefly urea (75 million tons of CO2), salicylic acid, cyclic carbonates, and polycarbonates. Increased utilization of CO2 as a starting material is, however, highly desirable, because it is an inexpensive, nontoxic starting material. There are ongoing efforts to replace phosgene as a starting material. Creation of new materials and markets for them will increase this utilization, producing an increasingly positive, albeit relatively small, impact on global CO2 levels. The other uses of interest are utilization as a solvent and for fuel production, and these are discussed in turn.
PRINCIPAL CURRENT USES OF CARBON DIOXIDE
Urea synthesis is currently the largest use of carbon dioxide in organic synthesis. Urea, C(O)(NH2)2, is the most important nitrogen fertilizer in the world. Urea is also an intermediate in organic syntheses such as the production of melamine and urea resins, which are used as adhesives and bonding agents. Carbon dioxide is also used to produce salicylic acid, which is found in pharmaceuticals, and cyclic organic carbonates, high melting, but extremely high boiling solvents for natural and synthetic polymers such as lignin, cellulose, nylon, and poly vinyl chloride. The latter are used extensively in the production of polyacrylic fibers and paints. Ethylene and propylene carbonates have many uses in chemical synthesis—among them reactions with ammonia and amines to form carbamates and subsequent reactions with diamines to yield di(hydroxyethyl) carbamates, which can react further with urea to form polyurethanes."
Those are just some of the current uses of Carbon Dioxide. And, although they are currently, relative to CO2 emissions, small uses, the potential seems to be there to expand the applications, especially since versatile modern plastics, such as polycarbonates and polyurethanes, can be made with CO2 as a starting material. Urea, the largest current consumer of CO2, as well, can be used not just as a fertilizer, but as a base material from which some types of plastics can formulated.
The author indicates that capture of CO2 at the production source is crucial to the successful use of CO2 as a base material for further synthesis. We'll note that other research we've reported to you suggests otherwise: That CO2 can feasibly be extracted from the atmosphere for practical use.
And, of course, as we've extensively documented, among other CO2 uses of interest mentioned is it's employment "for fuel production".
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