Don't Store CO2, Put it to Work

February 27, 2009 – Vol.13 No.49

DON’T STORE CO2, PUT IT TO WORK.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News.

According to a new report “State of Polar Research”, by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council for Science (ICSU), glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster than previously thought. The meltdown covers a wide area, too. With the current projection of Antarctic ice turning to water, global sea levels could rise 3 - 5 feet by the end of the century.

According to the Associated Press, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, has told a U.S. Congressional commitee that the Earth has about six more years at current rates of carbon dioxide pollution before it is locked into a future of severe global warming.

If part of the game plan to cut carbon emissions is to capture and sequester them, it might be prudent to step up the pace a bit. Or find a better, quicker solution such as turning carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and industrial facilities into useful products.

If an alternative to carbon capture and storage (CCS) is to make something with CO2, then the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is already doing just that.

In a project that began in 2007, CNOOC has begun turning carbon dioxide into carbon dioxide degradable plastics. The product, utilizing a patent developed by Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry and the Chinese Academy of Science, is a copolymer, a biodegradable material widely used in medical, agricultural, industrial and other fields.

The operation will use 2100 tons of carbon dioxide each year to make 3000 tons each year of the degradable plastic.

While it seems possible that as the plastic degrades it releases carbon dioxide once again, with no long term reduction in atmosphreric carbon dioxide, is it possible that non-degradable plastic (like most plastic) could be made instead? Who knows? If so, maybe carbon dioxide plastics could become a way to sequester the greenhouse gas. At the end of life, products made with such a polymer could be recycled or stored in landfills awaiting the day when they could be dug up and used again or converted into fuels, which is now possible.

In another industrial project CNOOC is also now using carbon dioxide emissions to make liquid food grade carbon dioxide used in the production of carbonate drinks, a.k.a. soft drinks. In a project started at the beginning of 2007 the company recycles 24 million cubic meters of carbon dioxide emissions to generate liquid food grade carbon dioxide and dry ice. Annual production capacity is 30,000 tons at its Haikou facility. The first tankful of liquid food grade carbon dioxide processed from emissions was shipped to Hong Kong on the last day of 2008.

Carbon dioxide emissions turned into plastics and soft drink fizz are two ways to put the gas to work instead of pumping it underground. Carbon Sciences, Santa Barbara, California thinks CO2 should be used as a basis for methanol. The company says it has a proprietary biocatalytic process that could be employed at coal-fired power plants to convert carbon emissions into the basic fuel. The methanol could be used directly or converted to gasoline, butanol and jet fuel. Of course carbon emissions would occur once the fuel is burnt, but the new source of fuel would displace others thus lower carbon emissions overall.

The company has filed the first in a series of patent applications protecting the company's novel and scalable biocatalytic process to transform CO2 into liquid fuels. The patent application, "A Biocatalytic Process and System to Transform Carbon Dioxide into Methanol," was submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office on February 17, 2009.

Links:

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)
http://www.cnooc.com.cn/yyww/default.shtml

Carbon Sciences
http://www.carbonsciences.com

International Polar Year – Report “State of Polar Research”
http://www.ipy.org