CO2 removed from pollution and atmosphere to produce alternative fuel

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Interesting article about the recent breakthrough in the ability to remove CO2 from industrial and subsequently, atmospheric pollution, with the aim of using it as an alternative fuel source.

Alternative fuel would be in the form of liquid Methanol derived from catalytic conversion of CO2, with the process being completely free of CO2 emissions itself.

Although the ability to develop this process on a global scale is still a few years away, I’m sure we all agree this is firstly, very promising news for the environment and secondly, is another step in the right direction towards zero emissions and as suggested, becoming eventually carbon negative in an effort to reducing global warming.

Scientific breakthrough: Remove CO2 from pollution and atmosphere for alternate fuel : Indybay

[Advent]

Finally! I've been waiting for something like this ever since global warming started getting out in the news. Make all that rubbish into fuel. About damn time, I say.

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Originally Posted by Advent

Finally! I've been waiting for something like this ever since global warming started getting out in the news. Make all that rubbish into fuel. About damn time, I say.

Damn right! And it will hopefully piss a few of the world's worst offending petrochemical companies off in the process.

[Human No More]

Not bad. Now this is a real solution, something that's actually practical to apply in production

[iron_jones]

Well how 'bout that.

[Crickett]

I realize this is just the pessimistic skeptic in me, but this sounds way too good to be true.

[Niri Te]

I read it and then posted a synopsis of the report, plus the link to it on several Yahoo engineering groups that I own. Thanks for posting it here.
Niri Te

[applejuice]

I wonder what will the doomsayers be saying about that.
Thankfully, there are people working to make the world a better place with technology, to counter the ultra fundamentalists advocating to abandon all the "evil technology that destroys the world".

[Moco Loco]

Wow, this looks pretty serious Doesn't seem incredibly complicated either, which is almost odd to me. I'd have thought if something like this could've been done, it would've happened a long time ago.

[Tsyal Makto]

Would make a great way to transition cars. Put scrubbers in all current internal-combustion cars, and the user can sell the methanol back to the energy companies, and use the money to put toward a methanol car. Think Cash for Clunkers mk.2.

[auroraglacialis]

This is a nice thing, but not that amazing in the end in terms of energy. Basically what it is is a process to capture CO2 and another one to convert energy and CO2 into a liquid fuel, methanol. This is interesting because it means one can run cars and transportation with a relatively high density fuel compared to gasses. But it still is far from being similar to ethanol or even gasoline. So a lot more Methanol has to be carried around in the car than gasoline now.
What the process does not really do is to provide an additional energy source, although the title of the article sort of sounds like that.

Summarizing this works like this:
CO2 is adsorbed from exhaust or air by a substance at ambient temperature. The substance can then be heated to 100°C to release the CO2 in a concentrated form. That CO2 can then be used in a manufacturing plant to produce methanol. This process requires some energy source (to use fossil fuels here makes little sense). There is no data given on the efficiency of the energy conversion. Methanol can then be liquified and shipped similar to ethanol with similar applications but with a lower energy density (energy/kg and energy/liter).

My conclusion is that the only amazing thing about this is, that instead of running electric cars in a few years time, it could still be modified combustion engines - in both cases the energy has in the end to come from some sources (solar, wind, hydro, nuclear) with either electricity or methanol simply being the carrier.

Also, if CO2 is captured, made into methanol and then burned, the whole transport process is CO2 neutral, but not removing CO2 from the atmosphere overall. Same is true for electricity as a transporter (or hydrogen for that matter). The only way this could be used to actually remove CO2 is if the stuff that was created by investing energy (concentrated CO2 from heating the capture substance) is pumped underground, a precess known as "carbon sequestration", which is somewhat controversial. In any case, it would involve investing energy in removing the CO2.

[applejuice]

Managing to keep CO2 concentrations constant would have a tremendous impact: it would mean that no more petroleum would have to be extracted to elaborate fuels -bad news for OPEC if the costs related to this new technology are similar to those of extracting and refining oil. Certainly, alternative energy sources should be used to make this environmentally friendly, nuclear would be a interesting choice, but only those developing this technology know what it needs.