Articles

My Turn: U.S. Policy on Carbon Capture and Sequestration is Limited

The energy waste issue facing the United States today should be open for innovative ideas of value by regular folks and not just reserved to a select group of big businesses, universities, and well-funded national labs. These traditional entities are needed, however considering the enormous energy waste problem we now have, much more is required.

The daunting task of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and safe sequestration should be opened-up to anyone with good ideas and good verifiable results.

Legislation is needed that would give states or federal regulatory agencies power to make seed companies eligible for depletion allowances or development cost write-offs for carbon capture and safe sequestration (CCSS).

A new law will enable a new tax status clarification and open up for anyone with a working apparatus yielding good results (verifiable), the much needed incentive to develop.

The recognizable national resources to develop are new, limited, and unregulated: sources of atmospheric CO2.

Working methods involve CO2 collection, separation, and solidification - processes for capture and safe storage. These are needed to explore as alternative concepts not limited to CO2 gas-to-liquid conversion, piped, and stored in empty oil wells.

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is a process for carbon sequestration favored in recent times. The process advocates expending a lot of energy to put CO2 under about 5 atmospheres which forms liquid CO2. The proposal is to simply pour it into an oil well and - poof - oil that was stuck there, comes out at the same time the bad stuff goes away (CO2).

There's a problem with this. Ignoring entropy and thermodynamics is not sustainable. If for some reason things go wrong, and the stuff comes back out as CO2 vapor - to breathe, we may need to wear space suits.

It's possible Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is not the best practice to adopt. EOR is one idea of the kind of profitable considerations brought forth in our present state of ignorance about the basic forces of nature.

Other methods are needed.

More reasonable methods are straightforward carbonate, bicarbonate, or chalk formation by design or by sea animals.

Evidence of CO2 capture and storage by Cretaceous Period sea-life dominates the view along the Southern coast of England.

Chalk formation world-wide was formed by tiny sea creatures which dined on CO2-harvesting phytoplankton. The resulting carbon storage settled to the sea floor over millions of years accumulating a precursor to limestone and marble.

We know CO2 sequestration for marine reef habitats is possible. Carbonate made from carbon dioxide is limestone. Limestone mixed with clay and volcanic ash hardens underwater as cement-like solid.

This idea was put forth by the Romans in the 5th century BC. They may not have known about CO2, but their cement still holds up aqueducts and part of the Coliseum.

CO2 modification, treatment, and exploratory mitigation experiments should be opened and dealt with on many fronts.

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research (ARPA-E), accepted only 1% of the thousands of proposals on this subject submitted for funding during 2009 and 2010.

July 16, 2010 the DOE announced all winners of research projects aiming to improve how the U.S. uses and produces energy. The entire 1% of applicants for 2010, will accelerate institutional innovation because most money went to universities, large businesses, and national labs. The awards complete ARPA-E's grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Innovation in 18 states and 43 projects will receive the $92 million.

The 1% practice effectively creates a non-proliferation of research and development for other entities because at least 4200 other ideas were left out and 32 states. Methodologies having good results cannot advance without support.

In the 1950's, a lack of regulation on geothermal development resulted in the Geothermal Resources Act. This legislation gave California's Division of Oil and Gas jurisdiction over geothermal resources.

With a legal and tax status clarified in the 1970's, technical problems could be solved by individuals in the smallest of companies; exploration investment risks were compensated for - treated the same as those enjoyed by big oil companies competing for fossil fuel.

Today, this example is worth another look; the new national resource is carbon.

CO₂ Control Device Cuts Fuel Emissions

A means for carbon dioxide (CO2) emission control is described as capturing CO2 from fluid flow. This includes a flow-through apparatus and a CO2 absorbing filter treated with an alkaline material housed within a stainless steel enclosure at tailpipe termination. The temperature remains consistently around 117°F on light-duty vehicles tested.

The filter device, added to motor exhaust, functions as a CO2 absorbent with diluted potassium hydroxide (KOH). The KOH which has an affinity for CO2 captures much of the CO₂ gas from the vented waste. The amount of CO₂ trapped by the filter is measured in quantity.

A further useful application of this technology is described in a two-step process wherein the filter is rinsed and the rinse water is treated with calcium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. This separation step allows dissolved CO₂ to precipitate to calcium carbonate or potassium carbonate - limestone.

In summery, gasoline and air goes to combustion energy with major by-products being water and CO₂. These are treated before exiting the tailpipe by the addition of KOH in a by-pass filter. The filter does not impede the flow of exhaust, but traps CO₂ gas in KHCO3. When saturated, a color indicator signals filter rinse and re-charge for reuse is required. The task is easily performed.

The water is covered and saved to make carbonate. When Group IA or IIA metal hydroxides are added to the rinse water, the CO₂ trapped in KHCO3 immediately forms carbonate (K2CO3 or CaCO3).

The carbonate locks CO2 into a useful material. When the carbonate is added to various aggregate mixes, cement-like products are developed.

Filtration systems via chemical absorption have the ability to harness the organic energy potential of CO₂ by decreasing or eliminating its waste emissions and safely utilizing it for alternative means. The idea of using catalysts in gas separation technology continues to be studied in detail (1,2,3,4). However, CO₂ removal from combustion sources in general and coal-fired power plants in particular is challenged by high energy processes, waste disposal, and safety concerns.

Research and removal of CO₂ from transport emissions downstream from a catalytic converter is becoming increasingly important as reliance on combustion mobility steadily prevails worldwide. We describe a method of using the vehicle’s available waste energy to enable a flow-by reaction to absorb CO₂ from gasoline combustion products directly within the exhaust stream. The exhaust components- including CO₂- are quantified in concentration using a factory calibrated 5-gas analyzer. The exhaust samples are collected directly from the tailpipe at engine idle, 2500, and 3500 rpms.

The force of exhaust with pollution content acts on the filter with mass, velocity, and therefore momentum. Momentum is conserved as collisions occur with gases impacting the filter/device/pipe system.

The filter device for tailpipe gases is found to reduce CO₂ emissions to a 50% efficiency in the total volume output at idle, as measured with non-dispersive infrared. At crusing speeds, the CO₂ removal efficiency drops and remains constant at 30% regardless of flow or pressure variation.

This CO₂ abatement concept has potential for gasoline engine tools or vehicles including hybrids.

Repeated analysis shows our vehicle CO₂ capture is a viable technology. The method is a function of filter media and filter positioning in the flow dynamics, without flow restriction. The capture region is well downstream from the catalytic converter.

Storage of the collected CO₂ depends on a periodic filter media water-rinse for safe carbonate or bicarbonate formulation.