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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Trees are better and cheaper at removing carbon from the air. They grow almost anywhere, are natural, good looking, don’t require nasty chemicals, provide great building materials, etc.
Burn coal produce CO2. Turn CO2 into coal. Repeat.
To turn CO2 back into coal requires, at a minimum, adding the Gibbs free energy difference between CO2 and carbon. This is also the maximum availability that one frees when coal (more appropriately carbon) is burnt to CO2. One is simply running around in a shallow spiral here as there are other losses (irreversibilities) involved.
Why the other CO2 sequestration schemes make marginally more sense than this one is that at a minimum they require only the energy needed to unmix the CO2 from the rest of the exhaust gases, and then compress it sufficient to force it into an underground reservoir.
None of these schemes make much sense in reality because all we are doing is burning more coal in order to bury availability. Recall the article from a few weeks ago about making hydrogen gas from methane? That process would end up with enormous amounts of carbon as a by product, which I hope they would haul in trains back out to Wyoming to bury in reclaiming of coal mines. At some future when sanity returns, we could reopen those mines for pure carbon.
Anthony: Move over wind farms. Step aside acres of solar panels.
You are being facetious, right? It’s another way to take electricity from wind farms and solar panels to make fuel from CO2.
Question is one of energy and of course politics.
Does it take more energy to create the coal than is stored in the coal? It becomes a political question, do we spend resources on removing CO2 from the atmosphere. If we spend resources on removing CO2 from the atmosphere the question becomes is that necessary? If it is necessary, can this process economically remove enough CO2 to make a difference.
Basic thermodynamics says energy is lost in each cycle. IMAO CO2 sequestration is not necessary. That no human artificial process could remove enough CO2 to make any noticeable changes to atmospheric CO2 levels.
Therefore while interesting in a way, just another method of fleecing taxpayers in order to save the planet.
Isn’t this about the 89th post on WUWT claiming that CO2 can be converted to fuel? Of course it can, but it takes more energy to do this than can be recovered. Not cost-efficient, ever, no way, no how.
Please stop, makes your site look foolish. CO2 is what is produced by combustion/oxidation of carbon. Other products of oxidation are known as ashes, rust, water, sand, clinkers, etc… Are any of these fuel? Why, no they are NOT!!!
Gee guys…let’s not get impatient. The first successful electric car was build circa 1890 and look how much progress has been made in only the last 130 years.
I know what Anthony is getting for Christmas.
Sounds like a great way to drive up the cost of electricity at the expense of the poorest consumers. The whole point of Carbon Taxes is to make human beings pay for the air they breathe and then give the money to bankers.
Anthony,
Thanks for presenting this coal-to-CO2-to-coal Oroborus!
There would be an irony indeed but it is not what the writer thinks. The irony would be that everything we know about endothermic and exothermic reactions, everything we know about thermodynamics and what we thought was the impossibility of making energy out of nothing, all that would turned out to be wrong, utterly wrong. We’ve been had for centuries.
Somehow I think it is unlikely. Ok, call me pigheaded.
Anthony publishes a story about a new source of energy – that has a negative COP. Yet refuses to publish anything on LENR You can now buy heat from Leonardo Corp’s E-Cat SK now, with delivery in weeks.
A NEW SOURCE OF CLEAN, CHEAP ENERGY IS NOW AVAILABLE
By Adrian Ashfield
Interest in LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions aka Cold Fusion) was started by Fleischmann and Pons in 1989. Early efforts to replicate their results failed, getting the subject a bad reputation. Although it was later replicated a hundred times, the damage had been done. See https://lenr-canr.org/ for hundreds of scientific papers proving LENR is real.
Dr. Rossi and his E-Cats
Andrea Rossi started experimenting in LENR using nickel and hydrogen in 1996. Meeting with some success, he teamed with Dr. Focardi in Italy. Dr. Rossi developed a number of different reactors that were shown publicly. These prototypes were hard to control and took hours to start up.
The breakthrough came with the fourth generation E-Cat QX (Energy Catalyzer), which I described in the Delco Times at the end of 2017. This tiny device, the size of your little finger, produced 5 kW of heat and started up immediately, using a plasma for the first time. Those interested in the details should read technical reporter Mats Lewan’s excellent book “An Impossible Invention.”
This past year Dr. Rossi and his team have worked hard to develop three industrial versions called E-Cat SK5, SK20 & SK100. The SK5 and SK20 were developed as industrial versions, while the SK100 (100 kW) is still in R & D. Sometime in 2019 he settled on the SK20 as his first production reactor and has built a factory to mass produce them.
What is LENR?
LENR is a nuclear reaction of a different kind than fission or fusion. It has a very high energy density well above any chemical reaction, doesn’t use radioactive materials nor produce ionizing radiation. The core temperature of the SK is around 8,000 degC . The heat is transferred by electromagnetic waves, with a frequency above ultra-violet light, mainly in the range of 300 to 350 nanometers. It uses common elements like nickel, hydrogen and lithium as fuel. Depending on the heat exchanger, it can provide heat up to 550 degC. It only requires refueling with a few grams of material once a year.
Live demonstration by video on Jan31, 2019
Dr. Rossi unveiled the SK20 reactor as a sealed blue box that was heating a plant of around 3,000 square feet. That had been in operation since Nov 19. The demo showed the SK20 working and was followed by some two hours of questions and answers. Having had throat surgery recently, his voice was a little hard to understand at times.
All the main parameters were given. The size of the SK20 reactor itself is only 4” in diameter by 4” long. The output was 21.9 kW of heat. The control panel used 380 W, most of which was recovered. The COP (coefficient of performance) was 57. This calculated value was confirmed by looking at the energy required to heat the building.
Rossi’s business strategy is to sell metered heat at 80% of the cost of any other fuel. That way the customer does not have to pay for the reactor and Leonardo can better protect their intellectual property. Fraud is very unlikely as the customer would know how much heat he is receiving.
Conclusions
The SK20 is available now from info@LeonardoCorp1996.com, with a delivery time of a few weeks, depending on the application. Dr. Rossi thinks his initial customers will be in agriculture. He is also working on a LENR powered turbine with a company in Japan that should provide the best way to get electricity.
If things work out as expected, LENR may also power things like ships and trains. Automobiles will take at least a decade to develop. But LENR should replace most fossil fuels in two decades and end the concern of global warming.
This may well be the start of a new era of plentiful clean energy.
This would not be the first time Dr. Rossi has announced the introduction of industrial models, shortly.
No it isn’t. He had control problems with previous models.
This is the first commercial version that is actually working.
one that you can rent for heat. Unlike previous models this has been tested for a year.
If you want 1 MW of heat you can order it now.
Rossi is installing 42 MW for an early client.
Adrian Asjfield: Rossi is installing 42 MW for an early client.
Don’t neglect to tell us how it turns out.
Adrian Asjfield: If you want 1 MW of heat you can order it now.
Units are out there, powering irrigation pumps, refrigeration units, casino power supplies? Lots of satisfied customers.
Two years from now Rossi will be installing 120MW for an early client, and there will not be any 42 MW units in operation. That’s my prediction. I check this field out at least annually. Do keep us informed.
My rep[y disappeared after clicking on post comment.
Adrian Asjfield: If things work out as expected, LENR may also power things like ships and trains.
This is a regular announcement, repeated annually or biennially. Let us know when a free-standing engine is actually powering something.
As the output of the SK reactor can be as high as 500C it should be possible to run a steam turbine.
The better solution is a LENR turbine. Rossi is working with a Japanese company to make one, but it is years away.
One problem with your story is where you said “Early efforts to replicate their results failed”–the group commissioned to investigate the claims of Pons and Fleischmann had a vested interest in scuttling it because a $Billion in research money was being sought for the tokamak fusion process at about the same time! Talk about industrial espionage!! Had LENR been shown to have promise, a $Billion would have been denied some very entrenched research groups that decided to simply lie to preserve their funding!!
The tests were run by MIT and Caltec hot fusion scientists.
It is now understood that they failed to load the Palladium with sufficient Deuterium in their haste.
DOE’s scientists lied to Congress about ITER, claiming a COP of 10 when in fact it is only 1.3 (ref Krivit) This is not enough for commercial use.
Adrian Asjfield: The tests were run by MIT and Caltec hot fusion scientists.
No one has ever demonstrated that one of these devices can produce more power than is consumed at startup (beyond measurement error), or that one has produced gamma radiation above natural background radiation longer than can be expected by chance.
I’m afraid this is nonsense. A device of 4″ by 4″ diameter has a surfacecarea of at most 500 cm square. For it to produce 22kW on a continues basis (how long exactly?) Will run at a temperature of a few hundred degrees. In fact, it may be so hot that it melts. You have been taken in and believe in a fairy tale.
You should try to understand the design before commenting.
The SK is a plasma operating at ~10,000C mainly with a radiation at 350 nanometers, in a transparent tube. The energy is collected by the heat exchanger.
This whole concept makes AOC’s Green New Deal look like an Einstein treatise by comparison! Planning for carbon sequestration is a monumental blunder unless the perpetrator’s goal is to impose genocide on a global scale! How about we just let the Earth green up from more available carbon?? Isn’t that the goal of classical environmentalism–the expansion and improved vitality of ecosystems?! Believe me, that will never happen if carbon is pulled out of the atmosphere and buried, never to be seen again!!
Ok, I’ve come to my senses! I now recognize this as a great government-run jobs-creating program implemented primarilyto keep coal miners employed, among others! The synthetic coal resulting from this process will be burried in appropriate locations on BLM land where mining companies can compete for mining leases and the synthetic coal can be mined again, shipped to coal-fired power plants again, after which the CO2 released to the atmosphere can be harvested again, fabricated into synthetic coal again, and deposited yet again for eventual mining!!! Every step in this perpetual cycle will employ thousands of workers, many ancillary businesses and industries, resulting in expanding taxes, and voters who support politicians that favor this Coal New Deal in perpetuity! Why, this is making much more sense than banning airplanes, eliminating farting cows, and stopping fossil fuel production, along with reconstructing all buildings in our country! Wouldn’t you agree?
I get it . An early April fools joke .
It does underscore the relationship between coal and CO2 . Yes lets eliminate natures plant food so the climate doesn’t change .
I propose that before people like AOC spout off about spending $trillions of dollars the
USA does not have these people should have to take and pass a Grade 9 science test .
OK for M Waters , native Indian impersonator Warren and most of the MSM Grade 3 will do .
Are these politicians all smashed ? Some committee is going to pretend to set the earths temperature ?
“…turning carbon dioxide back into coal and burying it back in the ground is a bit like…”insanity.
Wouldn’t it be helpful if 30,000 scientists were survey’d and asked to
rank various factors greater to least that determine the earths climate .
So for example :
The sun
The clouds
Ocean currents
Volcano activity
Cow farts
This might be useful in 500 years or so when we run out of coal.
What’s the point?
This will work once AOC repeals the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Well, this was an entertaining thread.
Yeah, there’s definitely energy balance issues with process, but it’s a step forward. Baby steps.
they are kidding …
they pretend to ignore the 2nd principle of thermodynamics
massimo