Move over wind farms. Step aside acres of solar panels. There’s a new renewable energy source coming down the pike, and it has the potential to put the others out of business. And, ironically, it’s the climate alarmists’ biggest demon. It’s carbon dioxide.
Carbon sequestration, as the process is called, removes CO2 from the atmosphere and turns it into a solid form, namely coal, in order to be able to store it safely back in the ground where it came from.
A research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, has discovered a new method of taking carbon dioxide in its gas form and converting it into solid coal. The discovery has the potential to completely change the way people regard the carbon dioxide that humans release into the atmosphere. The paper detailing how the feat was accomplished was published on February 26 in Nature Communications.
“While we can’t literally turn back time, turning carbon dioxide back into coal and burying it back in the ground is a bit like rewinding the emissions clock,” said Dr. Torben Daeneke, a research scientist at RMIT University.
A schematic illustration showing how liquid metal is used as a catalyst for converting carbon dioxide into solid coal. Credit: RMIT University
Methods of carbon sequestration already exist, but those methods are technically and economically challenging. Major oil companies and energy concerns such as Shell are currently spending a fortune on projects aimed at removing atmospheric CO2 from the air, but those processes involve turning CO2 into a liquid form and injecting it back into rock formations. The process is so expensive that even major companies can’t afford it without government subsidies.
While this is not the first time that scientists have been able to turn CO2 into coal, previous methods required extremely high temperatures and were not viable outside a laboratory setting. The new method can be accomplished at room temperature.
“To date, CO2 has only been converted into a solid at extremely high temperatures, making it industrially unviable,” Daeneke said.
But the researchers found a way around the extreme temperature problem. “By using liquid metals as a catalyst, we’ve shown it’s possible to turn the gas back into carbon at room temperature, in a process that’s efficient and scaleable,” Daeneke said.
The liquid metal catalyst was developed by the researchers with specific surface properties, making it extremely efficient at conducting electricity, while chemically activating the surface.
According to the press release: “The carbon dioxide is dissolved in a beaker with an electrolyte liquid and a small amount of the liquid metal, which is then charged with an electric current. The CO2 slowly converts into solid flakes of carbon, which are naturally detached from the liquid metal surface, allowing the continuous production of carbonaceous solid.”
And, yes, the process has the potential to yield a future energy source. The carbon produced may be able to be used as an electrode.
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Dr. Torben Daeneke needs to get a grip on reality
If any government feels the need to put carbon back in to the ground, because of society’s sin of using oil, gas or coal, why don’t they just bury trees in abandoned mines or something like that. Oh wait, too practical.
In the same thought process: why ship wood from the USA to the UK to burn it there (shipped with oil burning ships, for heaven’s sake) instead of burying the trees in the USA and dig for coal or frack for gas in the UK. Not that I want them to do it, but THEY want to compensate for emissions. If you really want to, it can be done very easily.
Thats because UK tax payers paid Drax power station almost £800M last year to burn US forests. Meanwhile Lord Deben chair of the CCC is getting massive back-handers to sanction the deal. Corruption is off the scale
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/drax-subsidies-rise-to-789m/
As always: follow the money
Going green is a scam hiding in plane sight.
But when will our scientists discover how to turn CO2 into gold?
Isaac Newton’s alchemy of old isn’t much practised nowadays.
Diamonds are by number of magnitudes more valuable than gold, gram for gram.
Take carbon (out of CO2 if you have to) pressurise it at 100GPa and job is done (it is well established industrial process).
It’s a lot cheaper to build nukes.
FULL ***ING stop.
Then you can have as many renewable synthetic [hydro]carbons as you care to pay for the uraniumr.
Anthony
I visit you website frequently because you have many interesting articles, however, I have to filter out a lot of garbage, such as this.
In this case you have copied a load of garbage from https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/energy/item/31613-carbon-dioxide-the-newest-form-of-renewable-energy
Rather than following the links to the original
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08824-8
That is still stupid, as it assumes that removing CO2 from the air is a good idea. But at least it gives a reasonably accurate description of what they did. And there is none of the stupid suggestion that this is an energy source.
They claim that the as-produced solid carbonaceous materials could be utilised for the fabrication of high-performance capacitor electrodes. But give no information as to why it would be good for this application.
Otherwise it is simply a method of expending electricity to damage life on earth.
However, the only reason this paper is published in Nature is because the authors link their findings to CO2 sequestration. It is interesting but hardly useful. If you want to make elemental carbon out of. CO2, just react cheap magnesium metal and dry ice. No need to use expensive cerium nanoparticles.
Here is a YouTube showing the process:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_xCbal2YyaE
So these days Nature publishes articles on perpetuum mobile?
No.
The New American misinterprets an article in Nature as perpetual motion.
Then Anthony reposts the misinterpretation here.
You know Bill, there is the possibility that this was posted here in a “Middleton-esque” fashion, i.e., as the subject of ridicule, just without the overt reference.
Why?
All the article is proving is that one “journalist” working for a magazine I had not previously heard of is an idiot. Personally I assume that journalists are idiots until proved otherwise.
If it is felt necessary to prove that, then include some comments to show that you know it is stupid. Also point out that RMIT University in Melbourne are not that stupid.
All the article is proving is that one “journalist” working for a magazine I had not previously heard of is an idiot.
With respect, perhaps it’s just not always about you Bill?
If it is felt necessary to prove that, then include some comments to show that you know it is stupid.
Why?
I didn’t need them.
This is another ‘perpetuum mobile’, it will never be practical or economic, but the science is not always concerned with practical or economic, it is concerned with ideas, theoretical possibilities and discoveries; educated as a scientist I therefore salute their efforts.
It is up to engineers to apply scientific discoveries and make them practical and economic.
Trained an engineer too, my verdict is ‘the idea is the absolute bonkers’ .
Not following this. Coal isn’t solid CO2, coal is solid C, you add O2 to burn it. Is this process removing the O2 from CO2 and making carbon coal or is the coal made of solid CO2?
Of course you remove the oxygen. Unfortunately this will consume as much energy as was created by burning the coal to CO2 in the first place, and then some (since no process is 100 % effective).
Why do they want to kill practically everything on Earth?
CO2 is Plant Food which is Animal Food.
Utter Madness.
This point illustrates how insane and panphobic (hating of life) the enviromentalists [sic] are.
Not practically everything, everything. Plants and anaerobic bacteria can live without oxygen. Nothing can live without CO2.
You really should get up to date.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/bacteria-survive-553-day-exposure-exterior-iss
There is NO CO2 in Space.
The reversion to coal could happen near to a green energy source, a Utopia of wind and solar tended by our Green chums. We poor folk could slave away in the real world chained to our hum drum existence by our craving for cheap plentiful electricity. This is strangely reminiscent of the Golgafrinchams ploy to rid themselves of the useless third of their population. It could work.
There are Dime a Dozen youtube videos available for removing CO2
Here is one such TEDCan we stop climate change by removing CO2 from the air? | Tim Kruger
Here is a second such TED A new way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere | Jennifer Wilcox
All these are very costly and not viable ideas, unless the resultant Carbon produced is Solitaire !
May be this crazy idea to make everything that Petroleum can make How Carbon Dioxide Could Shape the Future | Etosha Cave | TEDxStanford
BTW, doesn’t simply planting a tree accomplish the exact same thing? Shouldn’t the Big Oil Companies simply be buying up large tracks of land and planting fast-growing bamboo forests, cutting them down and burying them or making homes out of them? Why is everyone making this “problem” so complicated? Big Oil can plant forests and give away the wood to sequester the CO2 in new homes…and save an absolute fortune in the process.
Better yet, skip the Bamboo and grow hemp. That way you will get the libertarians on board.
And we hemp stock holders.
I have an even better, more reliable, and considerably less expensive way to reduce CO2 emissions.
1 – Persuade every Greenbeaner and Warmunista you can find to buy and wear a rebreather set up 24/7/365, and no time off for good behavior. You can do this by informing them that when they exhale, they personally add 2.75 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere, and they are very, very guilty of contributing to The Problem on a personal basis. But they have to pay for the rebreathers themselves.
2 – Give all the Greenbeaners, Warmunistas, Algorebullians their own spot on the planet, with all the wind and solar equipment they want. Has to be an island with no means of escape. (Penguin colonies may object, but they can be termed ‘endangered species – do NOT touch’.) They have to pay for and/or grow their own food and other such things themselves. And no leaving The Island for a minimum of 10 years.
Just want to see how truly dedicated they are, that’s all.
STep 3. Corner the market in Sofna Lime
Why not just sequester all the Greenbeaners and Warmunistas underground?
You want Morlocks to rise? Or those creepy things from the “C.H.U.D.” movie from the 1980s? It is a workable idea, but they’d still be here and have easy access to recharging their electronic stuff.
And you want the Mole People to rise?
https://youtu.be/kuvAKxlfN3U
Point Set Match
Turning Carbon Di-Oxide into coal seems like a dumb idea. We already have a way of doing that, its a bit slower and it involves trees but while we’re waiting we get to enjoy the trees. The genius of this idea is the potential to go the other way electrolytically . The carbon oxygen bond has a lot of energy but we have only been able to get at that energy by burning it. No one has been able to make a room temperature carbon fuel cell. This may be a step in that direction.
@Hugs
See the famous Storm King case https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenic_Hudson_Preservation_Conference_v._Federal_Power_Commission
In the US you could never build another facility like the Glenheim-Gilboa hydro stored project. The greenies would never allow it.
Turning CO2 into a solid to burn? We use CO2 to put fires out. Remove the Oxygen and you have a solid block of Carbon. Use the solid block of Carbon to make Carbon fiber. Harness the Oxygen for a controlled explosions. Can I get my government grant money with this idea?
Why would you want to do this in the first place?
More CO2 in the atmosphere at current levels is BENEFICIAL.
You have to drink the “CO2 causes Global Climate Change” cool-aid before this makes any sense.
This is akin to the practise of bleeding people.
In principle any combustion product can be changed back into the fuel that produced it, only the energy budget of doing so is unlikely to be in your favour.
The way around that is to create an abundant source of cheap energy. Thorium or fusion are the obvious candidates there. With such an energy source it also becomes possible to synthesize cleaner burning liquid fuels with lower pollution potential, for example alcohols. Existing IC engines could be modified to run on such fuels at low cost, compared to the replacement of the entire vehicle fleet with battery cars. Diesels might not even need any mods. Thus you solve the city pollution problem (if it is really a problem) as well.
There are roughly ten million tons of carbon in the atmosphere (( 12478143744000 square inches of earth surface) x (14lbs/sq in) x (400 co2 molecules/million atmosphere molecules) x (12g/mole C/44g/mole co2 )).
No, I didn’t confirm the surface area of the earth in sq in (I got it of the interweb). Yes this is a Q and D calculation. Estimated US coal reserves are 475billion tons.
You lost a bit in translation. The atmosphere contains 5×10^18 kg of air of which 0.04% is carbondioxide hence of which roughly 1 quarter is carbon, hence a fraction 0.00011. That makes about 5.5×10^14 kg of carbon, 5.5×10^11 metric tons. That is 550.000 million tons, not 10 million.
E J Zuiderwijk:
Although the calculation is incorrect, the figure should be 550,000 million tons or 550 billion tons , not 550.000 million tons.
CO2 is 0.04% by volume so that would be 44/29 of 0.04% =0.06% approx. (0.0607%) of the Atmosphere is CO2.
Carbon would be 0.0166% of weight of Atmosphere.
I’m a scientist, we use dots. Accountants use commas.
This in an old process to turn CO2 to carbon. Burn magnesium in CO2. There might be room for improvement in total energy efficiency, but who cares, when you can save the world. 😉 https://youtu.be/2oQ_9nFe9HU
I’m not a scientist but has someone proved the minimum amount of energy required to remove co2 from air ? Not turning into coal, just removing it. Where is the cost ?
The price is to hold your breath.😉
It’s being shrubbed from air by raindrops falling through. That’s why pure rainwater is slightly acidic. That one costs nothing. In industrial aplications where carbondioxide has to be removed it can be done by absorption in pure Calcium Oxide, quick lime, then to form calcium carbonate. Unfortunately the calcium oxide does not occur naturally, except in hot vulcanic ejecta, as it binds water in no time, so it has to be made from calcite by heating it, which releases, eh, carbondioxide and cost a lot of energy.
Burning coal producing carbon dioxide and reversing the process by using some mysterious molten metal catalyst to reverse the process to produce coal seems like a unaffordable pipedream which most likely will be embraced by climate alarmists.
Cost free carbon sequestration ..
Just leave the existing coal reserves in the ground ..
Totally unnecessary. The CO2 we are emitting is not only harmless, but beneficial. Plants love it. And coal is relatively cheap, so it’s win-win.