Article from Fast Company:
| Carbon Sciences Moves Closer to Turning CO2 Into Gasoline BY ARIEL SCHWARTZ  Is there a good way to release carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Carbon Sciences, a Santa Barbara, California-based startup, seems to think so. The company announced this week that it has discovered an efficient raw catalyst that can turn natural gas and CO2 into gasoline. Carbon Sciences claims that the technology could be used to meet all of the United States' gasoline requirements using 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 586 million tons of CO2--no crude oil required. Here's how it works: Carbon Sciences gathers methane (from natural gas fields, landfills, and plant biomass) and CO2 (from coal-fired power plants and cement factories) and uses its secret formula to form low-level hydrocarbons and convert them into higher-level gasoline range hydrocarbons. This creates a gasoline-like substance that is free of heavy metals, carcinogenic compounds, and toxic oxides. "The key features we have confirmed in our tests are high conversion efficiency and potential for catalyst longevity, which translates directly into commercial viability," said Dr. Naveed Aslam, Carbon Science's Chief Technology Officer, in a statement. "High conversion efficiency means lower capital cost to produce substantial quantities of fuel. Longevity means that our systems will not require frequent shutdown for maintenance and catalyst cleaning... unlike catalysts previously considered by others, our catalysts are designed using common metals that are plentiful and inexpensive."  The problem, of course, is that Carbon Science's technology doesn't prevent power plant CO2 emissions from hitting the atmosphere--it just recycles them into fuel along the way. Carbon Sciences argues that this process is still more sustainable than biofuels: Most of the renewable alternatives to fossil fuel today, such as ethanol and biodiesel, are biofuels based on terrestrial crops such as corn and sugar cane. These sources of biofuel are not sustainable, as they compete with world food supplies and require large amounts of energy and time to grow, process, and ferment the crops into biofuels. Additionally, these biofuels...are either blended into gasoline in small amounts or require new or substantially modified vehicles and fuel delivery infrastructure. Most importantly, it is simply not possible to grow enough terrestrial crops to replace the 85 million barrels of petroleum the world consumes every day. All fair points, but we're yet to be convinced that this is the most environmentally sound method of removing CO2 from factories and coal-fired plants. But if the process does work, it could have a dramatic impact on worldwide CO2 emissions--the transportation sector alone accounts for 74% of the total projected increase in fossil fuel demands from 2005 to 2030 (over 112 million barrels of crude oil used per day in 20 years). The largest source of CO2 emissions is coal-fired power plants, with annual emissions are projected to increase from 28 billion metric tons in 2005 to 34 billion metric tons in 2015 and at least 42 billion metric tons in 2030. If we could halve those emissions by recycling them and cut down on fossil fuel use, climate change could be slowed considerably. This is still all a big "if," however. Carbon Sciences has yet to prove that its technology works outside of a lab setting, so it will likely be many years before we see any products from the company on the market. |
Opinions:
If you do believe that everything in this world is a cycle, and that there must be a way to reverse the damage human has done to the environment, then there is hope. In the case of the article, hope comes at a price of course, but the price is simply paying the company for its secret formula. I do hope it does really work. And if it really does work, the catalyst must be some kind of gem from Harry Potter -- magical!
To make this whole conversion process viable, power generated from fossil fuel must not be used, so I guess it is another biological process and most likely the catalyst is biological. What kind of germs and bacterias will do this task?
I found something that might fit on the internet, and it might just be the one that they are using, it is a soil-dwelling bacteria! Quoting from The Columbus Dispatch,
"The idea is that soil-dwelling bacteria that digest carbon dioxide and hydrogen could be genetically altered to make butanol."
Which bacteria might that be? Nothing a little research can't find.
Wikipedia might have provided some clue,
"Nitrosomonas europaea, as well as populations of soil-dwelling AOB, have been shown to assimilate the carbon dioxide released by the reaction to make biomass via the Calvin Cycle, and harvest energy by oxidizing ammonia (the other product of urease) to nitrite."
Just to double-confirm this bacteria can do the job, let's look up on Calvin Cycle,
"The light-independent Calvin cycle, also known (erroneously) as the "dark reaction" or "dark stage," uses the energy from short-lived electronically-excited carriers to convert carbon dioxide and water into organic compounds[2]that can be used by the organism (and by animals that feed on it). This set of reactions is also called carbon fixation."
Looks like we have the world saver here! "Grow the bacteria, save the world!!!"
Vocabulary:
crude -- (n) [U] (also crude oil) oil in a natural state that has not yet been treated
carcinogenic -- (adj) describes a substance which causes cancer
longevity -- (n) [U] formal living for a long time
viability -- (n) [U] ability to work as intended or to succeed
substantial -- (adj) large in size, value or importance
dramatic -- (adj) very sudden or noticeable, or full of action and excitement
Resources:
News Article @ Fast Company
http://www.fastcompany.com/1704612/carbon-sciences-moves-closer-to-turning-co2-into-gasoline
Soil-dwelling bacteria @ Dispatch
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/04/30/bacteria-next-fuel-source.html
Which soil-dwelling bacteria @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrification
Calvin Cycle @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Cycle
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/crude_3#crude_3__3
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/carcinogenic
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/longevity
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/viability
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/substantial_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/dramatic_1
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