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In the attached article, you will find an extensively-documented explanation of the fact that Carbon Dioxide originating from our use of coal, and other fossil fuels, is not the primary culprit when it comes to global warming.
As we have earlier reported, geological, and other, natural processes emit far more CO2 than we, with our coal use, ever could - irregardless of our documented ability to recover and recycle the gas. And, natural, inexorable, celestial forces, such as the various solar cycles we've reported, have far more influence on global climatic cycles than we puny humans could, or should, ever imagine having.
Some excerpts:
"According to the three researchers, the overall phase agreement between the two climate reconstructions and the variations in the sunspot number series "favors the hypothesis that the [multi-decadal] oscillation (of global temperature - JtM) revealed in δ13C from the two different environments is connected to the solar activity," which further suggests that a solar forcing was at work in both terrestrial and oceanic domains over the past two millennia. Thus, and once again, we have additional evidence (that) solar forcing ... has been responsible for the 20th-century warming of the globe that led to the demise of the Little Ice Age and ushered in the Current Warm Period."
All the evidence, it seems:
"favors the hypothesis that the [multi-decadal] oscillation ... is connected to the solar activity ..."
We should still recapture and recycle as much of the Carbon Dioxide arising from our coal use as we can. It's a profitable and constructive thing to do. It could enhance our national energy security and lead to fuller employment, among other benefits. But, let's do it for those positive reasons, and in the right ways. Rushing headlong into foolishly-expensive and unnecessary procedures such as geologic sequestration, would be a panicked, unreasoning reaction to unfounded fears.
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This article is from Dr Julie Styles, in the Science, Technology, Environment and Resources Section of Australia's Parliamentary Library.
Some excerpts:
"... synthetic transport fuels are cleaner burning than diesel and petrol, with no sulphur emissions, and lower nitrous oxide (NOx), particulate matter (PM), hydrocarbon (HC), and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, ... . Pollutant emission reductions are even greater when vehicle engines are optimised for synthetic fuels."
"End-products of CTL or coal gasification include synthetic diesel, synthetic petroleum, synthetic waxes, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, hydrogen, methanol and dimethyl ether."
"According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), CTL conversion is viable at oil prices above around US$40/barrel.[16] Studies in the US suggest liquid fuel production from coal in combination with electricity production would be competitive with fuel from oil at oil prices between US$27 and US$45 per barrel..."
There is quite a lot of negativism expressed in the article, to be honest, about the costs associated with managing Carbon Dioxide emissions from the coal conversion facilities. However, Dr. Stiles does not address the seemingly incontrovertible economic and environmental potential, as we've documented, of actually using CO2 to manufacture more liquid fuel and chemicals. She, as most, might simply not be aware of it.
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We submit this article in further support of our contention that Carbon Dioxide, arising from our use of coal to generate power, or synthesize liquid fuel, and valuable chemicals and plastics, is actually a valuable resource which should not be demonized, or wasted.
We have previously documented development of the "CR5" - explicated below - at Sandia National Labs, but this article, and it's associated links, can lead you to additional information, including the fact that the technology has been purchased by private corporations, and is in the process of being reduced to commercial practice.
Some worthwhile excerpts:
"In the hydrogen economy, automobiles would be powered by the simplest element on the periodic table, leveraging the element's abundance. But as the Hindenburg disaster demonstrated, hydrogen is the also most difficult element to compress into a safe, usable form. Why not instead synthesize a hydrocarbon-based fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline?"
"Sandia National Laboratories is building such a fuel synthesizer in a bid to create renewable synthetic fuel by combining the CO2 with water."
It "harnesses sunlight to reverse the process of combustion."
""Rather than make hydrogen to use in fuel cells, we think it might make more sense to make a synthetic fuel that is already compatible with our existing [gasoline engine] infrastructure," said Rich Diver, inventor of the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5). "Others are working on ways to make liquid synthetic fuels from natural gas, but we are going back a step further and looking at ways of thermochemically making the precursors for synthetic fuel using solar energy, carbon dioxide and water.""
"Planet cleaner"
Unbelievable as it sounds, Diver claims that his solar-powered reactor could help clean up the planet by making internal combustion a reversible process. His team calls the project Sunshine to Petrol (S2P) and the envisioned synthesized product Liquid Solar Fuel."
"Combining hydrogen and carbon monoxide (extracted via solar power from Carbon Dioxide) gives you a fuel which you can use similarly to natural gas; and using a few chemical processing steps, you can make methanol and other liquid fuels that you can burn in engines designed for gasoline ..."
Thus, full use of our coal resources, to generate electricity and to synthesize liquid fuels and useful organic chemicals, would generate valuable raw materials, such as Carbon Dioxide, which we can then use to make even more liquid fuel and more organic chemical industry feedstocks.
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by
Klaus Lackner,
Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University.
Klaus Lackner,
Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University.
The paper cited above was delivered by Klaus Lackner at a Rutgers conference.
If you do even a perfunctory literature search, you'll find that Professor Lackner is a potent intellectual presence in his fields of specialty. We have cited him previously, and, for us, it generates a satisfying sense of validity to be able to quote him again in support of our theses, as in the abstract, below:
"Abstract
We describe a technology for capturing CO2 directly from ambient air (air capture) at collection rates that far exceed those of trees or other photosynthesizing organisms and at costs that would allow the widespread use of air capture in managing the anthropogenic carbon cycle and combating climate change. The specific technology uses anionic exchange resins in a sorbent swing between a carbonate and bicarbonate form. Once the resin is saturated with CO2, the gas is driven off the resin by exposure to moisture. This humidity swing allows for an extremely energy efficient implementation of carbon dioxide capture. Air capture becomes the CO2 capture of last resort. It can compensate for all those emissions that otherwise would accumulate in the atmosphere by removing a net amount of CO2 from the air that matches a specific emission at a different location and time. At a large scale, air capture can reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and undo the current excursion in greenhouse gas concentrations much faster than natural processes. Finally, the capture of CO2 enables the closure of the carbon cycle by recapturing CO2 and making it the chemical feedstock that provides carbon for fuel synthesis. (Note, again: "CO2...the chemical feedstock ... for fuel synthesis. - JtM) The other inputs are water, which provides hydrogen, and energy from a source that is carbon-free (How's about a hydroelectric generator installed, as in New Martinsville, WV, in analready-existing navigation dam? - JtM).
As we've been saying: CO2 - generated from our use of coal, whether we employ that coal to generate power or to synthesize liquid fuels and chemicals - is a valuable by-product of that coal use. We shouldn't be wasting it, or money, by pumping it all down geological storage rat holes. We can use it to make more liquid fuels.
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This comes from the Society of Automotive Engineers International. An excerpt:
"Abstract:
The emissions reduction benefits of Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel fuel have been shown in several recent published studies in both engine testing and in-use vehicle testing. FT diesel fuel shows significant advantages in reducing regulated engine emissions over conventional diesel fuel primarily to: its zero sulfur specification, implying reduced particulate matter (PM) emissions, its relatively lower aromaticity, and its relatively high cetane rating."
The emissions reduction benefits of Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel fuel have been shown in several recent published studies in both engine testing and in-use vehicle testing. FT diesel fuel shows significant advantages in reducing regulated engine emissions over conventional diesel fuel primarily to: its zero sulfur specification, implying reduced particulate matter (PM) emissions, its relatively lower aromaticity, and its relatively high cetane rating."
We've addressed the issues of CO2 and Nitrogen in liquid fuels produced from coal, and had earlier noted that Sulfur, as well, was efficiently "cleaned" out of coal-based liquid fuels during the process of conversion.
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