Fascinating provided it's real, and not another Theranos. Technologies that accomplish this have been around for a while, apparently the difference this time is the possibility it can be done cheaply and in quantity.


Chloe Aiello
Published 2:20 PM ET Thu, 7 June 2018 Updated 11:49 AM ET Fri, 8 June 2018 CNBC.com


A team of scientists claims to have discovered a cheaper way to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into gasoline or other fuels, which could arm humanity with a new tool in the fight against climate change.

Published in the scientific journal Joule on Thursday, the research demonstrates a new technique that pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and converts it into liquid gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

Canadian clean energy company Carbon Engineering, in partnership with researchers from Harvard, used little more than limestone, hydrogen and air for the process, which can remove one metric ton of CO2 for as little as $94, the scientists say. It cleans up the environment, and produces eco-friendly liquid fuel at the same time.

"Until now, research suggested it would cost $600 per ton to remove CO2 from the atmosphere using DAC technology, making it too expensive to be a feasible solution to removing legacy carbon at scale," David Keith, Harvard Professor and founder of Carbon Energy said in a statement. "We now have the data and engineering to prove that DAC can achieve costs below $100 per ton."

DAC refers to "direct air capture" technology, or the technique by which Carbon Engineering extracts CO2 from air.

A similar process could be used applied to trap greenhouse gases under ground. That particular application of the technology entails pumping gases into the ground, rather than producing a liquid fuel product.

The technique has been removing CO2 from the atmosphere since 2015 from a small pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia. Carbon Engineering is seeking funding to build an industrial-scale version of the plant, which Keith told the Atlantic the company can complete by 2021.

Carbon Engineering is owned by several private investors, including Bill Gates.


Link

And it becomes economically viable at greater than what $/barrel of oil??

Watch, they'll extract so much CO2 they'll end up causing global cooling. What will Al Gore do then?

I wonder if the $94 includes the cost of the limestone and electricity required to do this. Also, is the one ton of CO2 removed net of the carbon released in mining and transporting the limestone, and making the electricity? I'm suspicious that those inputs aren't included in the sales pitch.

Perhaps the US Navy could use a plant like this on aircraft carriers to manufacture jet fuel from their excess electricity. I think I read about that once as a possibility.

I suspect thermodynamic (if I'm using the term correctly) issues. CO2 is a product of combustion. Energy is released in its creation. To break it up, energy has to be put back in. They also say they need free hydrogen gas for this. Making that also takes energy input.

Of course plants very nicely turn CO2 to sugar (which is a type of fuel) using sunlight. Maybe we should try that.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
Watch, they'll extract so much CO2 they'll end up causing global cooling. What will Al Gore do then?

Or asphyxiate all plant life.

(Is that a proper application of the word? Can plants be asphyxiated? I don't know.)

I'd probably use the term "starvation", thinking of CO2 as food for plants. Some botanists are already giving alarms that the CO2 levels in our atmosphere are verging on too low to support our current plant life--that we need to substantially increase the CO2 levels.

flashguy

Energy companies are RATTLED by the news...

If it really works, someone will buy them out.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
Perhaps the US Navy could use a plant like this on aircraft carriers to manufacture jet fuel from their excess electricity. I think I read about that once as a possibility.

I used to smoke cigars with a Naval researcher working on using algae for that. The idea being that a nuclear fleet could have a ship along to produce the jet fuel, etc needed, as the cost of fuel, transported to the middle of the ocean is quite high/ignoring any issues combat could raise about maintaining a supply
.

I seriously doubt that there is anything "cheap" about this process, if all factors are properly accounted for.

flashguy

.....and they all died in a gigantic fire and thier research was lost...

Cool if its legit but yes, global cooling for sure. Have to tear a hole in the ozone to balance it all out.

A couple of years ago a company came out with a gas stove that ran off water.. they could convert the water to..... pure hydrogen and Oxygen... the only problem was/is it takes more energy to do this that you get back.... I'm not a physicist, but I suspect this newer thing is the same.....

Never a free lunch. Everything costs energy.

They make it sound like rolling a boulder back uphill is nothing.

Here is the full paper:

https://www.cell.com/joule/ful...2542-4351(18)30225-3

Note that Figure 2 shows they are taking air with the following properties:

21C
0.060% CO2
23.00% O2
75.96% N2
0.98% H20

Then they are burning ~8.5 million BTU of natural gas (or ~5 million BTU of natural gas + 366 kWhr of electricity), to run it through a process that outputs a gas stream with the following properties:

40C
151 bar
97.12% CO2
1.36% O2
1.51% N2
0.01% H20

The paper then theorizes that this highly pure CO2 gas stream could be used for some other industrial process to create "carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels" such as jet fuel. Nowhere in the paper does it describe any process where they are actually "Converting CO2 into Gasoline" as the headline states.