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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Canadian firm opens facility to pull carbon from air Yahoo... Squamish (Canada) (AFP) - A company with global plans to pull carbon from thin air to make fuel, while tackling climate change, opened a pilot plant in this remote western Canadian community. Carbon Engineering, backed by Bill Gates and other investors, unveiled a test facility able to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using giant fans. That carbon goes through a series of chemical processes and emerges as pellets, which can be used to make fuel -- or simply be stored underground. The company was founded in Calgary in 2009 by David Keith, a Harvard University climate scientist, with funding from private investors. Unlike existing machines that capture carbon from smokestacks like those of coal-fired power plants, the direct air capture plant deals "with emissions from sources you just can't otherwise capture," said company chief executive Adrian Corless. "It's now possible to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, and use it as a feed stock, with hydrogen, to produce net zero emission fuels." The benefit of those synthesized fuels, Corless told AFP, is they can be tailor-made for use in existing systems, from petrol pumps to automobiles and airplanes. "You don't have to re-tool the $30 trillion in (global) infrastructure now used to deliver fossil fuels," Corless said. While alternative energies, from wind to solar, are being developed, "there's not a lot of options to power airplanes and vehicles," said Corless. "For me, this is most exciting." "The economics are attractive," said scientist Hadi Dowlatabadi, of the University of British Columbia. This small town north of Vancouver welcomed the company moving into an unused industrial site, and the opening was blessed by members of the aboriginal Squamish Nation as a working example of traditional teachings to take care of the world. - 'Have to adapt' - "We have to adapt to the modern world," said councilor Chris Lewis. Mark Jaccard, professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, said the technology holds promise to reduce greenhouse gases and climate change. "What humans really should be doing is really either not using fossil fuels -- or using fossil fuels and capturing the carbon so it doesn't go into the atmosphere," Jaccard said. Other companies around the world are experimenting with air capture, but Corless said Carbon Engineering's design is unique because it can be quickly and affordably scaled up to industrial size. Corless said the pilot plant began operations in June and has already captured 10 tonnes of C02. The company says it plans to use the data from the pilot plant in Squamish to design its first commercial plant by 2017, which it says will cost no more than $200 million. "We should be in a position to be selling synthetic fuels in 2018," said Corless. He said synthetic fuels, like fossil fuels, provide an energy source concentrated enough to power airplanes and long-haul ground transportation. Poster Comment: Samuel R... Air Products, and other industrial gas companies, have been separating carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen and argon from air for decades and storing them as compressed gasses. Doing so requires heavy duty refrigeration equipment to liquefy the air so that the components may be separated based upon their different boiling points. A fan is not going to separate CO2 from the remaining components of air nor will it solidify CO2 or manufacture pellets of solid carbon (graphite). A fan would only be useful to move large quantities of air through equipment which can remove the 0.4% of CO2 from air. There are a lot of missing details in this article. 45-6 Ed Harley... The author just throws in the fact that the company can add hydrogen to the pellets to make fuel- that's all you got to do, just go out and get some free hydrogen.8-3 Samuel R...Ed Harley; Several months ago VW / Audi announced that they had successfully completed a long term test of using synthetic diesel fuel made from CO2, water and electricity in their diesel cars. They also reported that the prototype manufacturing equipment for the synthetic diesel fuel is capable of producing a barrel of fuel per day. Commercialization depends upon obtaining orders for fuel. 3 D Daniel...Fact check. 1 gallon gasoline weighs 2.79KG 1 gallon gasoline produces 8.75KG CO2 Why, because each carbon atom in the fuel bonds with 2 oxygen atoms in the air, nearly tripling the weight. "the pilot plant began operations in June and has already captured 10 tonnes of C02" which means the entire plant has sequestered the CO2 of 1143 gallons of gasoline in 3 months... The eqivalent of 9.5 average cars (25mpg) going the average of 1000 miles a month for the 3 months. What do you want to bet that the plant has employed more than 9.5 people?24-6 Commenter... Carbon + oxygen gives CO2 + energy(heat). In theory, one could add the same amount of energy to CO2 and get carbon and oxygen back. However, burning carbon usually has an efficiency of about 70% and I would be surprised if the reverse reaction was anywhere near as efficient. Unless, this company has a zero cost source of power to run the process, I'm not sure what is gained. My guess would be this project is more set up to capture tax and donor dollars than carbon. 7-3 Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
Very interesting, and I really appreciate people posting comments with articles sometimes. So what's the verdict here?
For the time being let the trees do it. But I suppose when petroleum runs out and transport fuel is still needed then research into this possibility is worthwhile. With ever increasing urbanization boulevard trees need to be the kind which can be converted to lumber rather than destined for firewood and landfills.
So you think this new process could eventually become economical?
It's the hydrogen production that is economical and it doesn't have to be converted by carbon pellet to burn. And thats the real problem, no money it. On demand hydrogen production is where its at. Thats the future because the power that be can not stop it. And youtube only puts up more and more videos.every day feturing garage mechanics converting their cars, motorcycles, and lawn mowers to run off hydrogen. These.literally.are. the.last.days.of petroleum. ______________________________________ Suspect all media / resist bad propaganda/Learn NLP everyday everyway ;) If you don't control your mind someone else will.
Great! So hydrogen is a safe vehicle fuel now? There was concern about massive explosions in accidents. I guess that was 1980s-90s stuff.
Hydrogen has always been safe, their is.just alot of propaganda surrounding it because it is cheap to produce and burns normally in any internal combustion engine (providing the fuel injector chip is altered to recognize the differnt combustion level) On demand hydrogen is safest of all because you don't carry a store of hydrogen but produces only as much as you need when you need it. If you'd like to know more read all about HHO drycells. ______________________________________ Suspect all media / resist bad propaganda/Learn NLP everyday everyway ;) If you don't control your mind someone else will.
Thanks! really exciting info.
Anything is economical when there is a need for it. Look at crude, once $3/bl was still economical at $100-150/bl.
Well, I'm glad to hear that! "Necessity is a mother" -- old saying. Dr. Bob Jones Sr. version: "Whatever must be done can be done."
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