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kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,458

Strategic CO2 Reserve Establishment

As supplies of hydrocarbon energy become expensive to source, to preclude the possibility of running out, we should establish a Strategic Liquid CO2 Reserve to capture and store CO2 from air and sea water in tank farms around the country, the same way we capture and store oil.  This will spur development of all manner of inventive and efficient ways to recapture and store CO2.  The government will pay a fee for the captured CO2.  Captured CO2 will be used as the chemical feedstock for industrial processes to make plastics or plastic precursors, provide working fluids for solar thermal or nuclear thermal power plants and their supercritical CO2 turbines, and most importantly, to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels from scratch.  Since these synthetic fuels will be produced by heat and pressure from pure CO2 and H2, they will be almost entirely free of impurities, such as Sulfur or heavy metals.

Incentives work better than taxes.  You get more of whatever you incentivize.  If there's an incentive to capture and recycle CO2, then you'll get more captured CO2.  LCO2 is around 800kg/m^3 at room temperature, so it stores as nicely as shale oil, which is also around 800kg/m^3.

The US emits 5,500,000,000t or 5.5km^3 of CO2 each year after natural environmental absorption by plants is accounted for, so 6,875,000,000t / 6.875km^3 is the total volume of the tank farm we require, which works out to 34,375 of the 200,000m^3 storage tanks.  Sinopec has started building 270,000m^3 LNG storage tanks, so this is clearly achievable since tanks of this volume are being constructed in China to hold LNG.  That may seem huge, but a 200,000m^3 is 58.48m x 58.48m x 58.48m, so we find locations with sparse or nonexistent population, we put our tank farms there, and equip all storage plant personnel with O2 respirators in case there's a leak.  We could even repurpose old oil wells to store our CO2 if we don't want the tanks above ground.

Stanford engineers create a catalyst that can turn carbon dioxide into gasoline 1,000 times more efficiently

This article is something of a misnomer.  The catalyst converts the CO2 and H2 into Butane.  The Socony-Mobil process converts Methane, Propane, and Butane into gasoline, diesel, or kerosene.

Scientists found a cost-efficient method to turn CO2 “back into coal”

A new liquid metal electrolysis method can convert CO2 gas into coal-like solid flakes at room temperature. The carbon dioxide is dissolved and placed in a beaker filled with an electrolyte liquid and liquid metal. Charged with electrical current, it slowly converts into solid flakes of a coal-like substance.

Until now, extremely high temperatures were necessary to convert carbon dioxide into a solid substance. This made it very inefficient to use commercially. According to the research team from the RMIT University in Melbourne, the new method is relatively inexpensive, and can be done at room temperature with commonplace lab equipment.

It's going to be a lot easier and much faster to recycle CO2 into fuels than it is to convert every last energy generating or consuming device in modern human civilization to use scarce high embodied energy metals and electricity produced by short-lived electronic devices, if for no other reason than we're in zero danger of ever running out of recyclable CO2.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 17,449

Re: Strategic CO2 Reserve Establishment

This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members over time.

The idea on offer ** should ** provide plenty of fuel for creative thinking.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,017

Re: Strategic CO2 Reserve Establishment

We have a number of topics that have uses for CO2 not just to make new materials for use but also as power sourcing through thermal exchange.

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,464

Re: Strategic CO2 Reserve Establishment

Impressive new catalyst from Stanford.  Propane is LPG and can be stored as a compressed liquid.  There is already an established fuelling infrastructure for use of LPG in vehicles.  All we would need to do is expand it.  It wouldn't be too difficult to power trucks, trains and aircraft with LPG.  It is just a case of replacing existing assets as they slowly retire.  Something that can happen incrementally.

CO2 could be stored as liquid in undersea tanks.  It appears to be slightly less dense than water, so we could store it in ballasted concrete containers offshore in the gulf of Mexico.  It could then be piped onshore to fuel factories in Texas and New Mexico.  It is even something that we could ship to different places by tanker.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-04-08 07:51:11)

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