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Company That Sucks CO2 From Air Announces a New Methane-Producing Plant (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Swiss company Climeworks has announced the opening of a new plant in Italy that will collect carbon dioxide (CO2) from ambient air and pair it with renewably-made hydrogen (H2) to make methane fuel that would add little or no CO2 to the atmosphere. The plant in Troia, Italy, was completed in July and went into operation this week as part of a research program funded by the European Union. The new Italian plant will be run for more than 4,000 hours over the next 17 months (that's just under eight hours a day) in order to demonstrate the viability of fuel production as a potential revenue source for carbon capture. Gebald said that pure, captured CO2 could even be processed into jet fuel. When that fuel is burned, he said, it would again create CO2 that could be captured at an arbitrary Direct Air Capture plant and turned back into jet fuel.
The plant consists of three air collectors that are more energy efficient than Climeworks' first ambient air collector. "The plant will filter up to 150 tons of CO2 from ambient air per year," Climeworks said in a press statement. "Simultaneously, an alkaline electrolyser (1.2 MW) locally generates 240 cubic meters of renewable hydrogen per hour by making use of excess on-site photovoltaic energy." A catalyst then combines the CO2 and the hydrogen into methane gas in a reactor built by a French company called Atmostat. The methane "is then liquified and used to fuel natural gas lorries," Climeworks says. As Ars notes, Climeworks' previous carbon-capture plant "captured carbon out of ambient air using a filter of base amines that would bind with more acidic CO2." The carbon that was captured was then sent to a greenhouse to speed plant growth.
"The second was based in Iceland at a geothermal plant that released some volcanic CO2," reports Ars. "Climeworks' small plant captures that carbon and injects it back into the ground, where mineral reactions help the CO2 bind with basalt, essentially storing the gas as a rock."
The plant consists of three air collectors that are more energy efficient than Climeworks' first ambient air collector. "The plant will filter up to 150 tons of CO2 from ambient air per year," Climeworks said in a press statement. "Simultaneously, an alkaline electrolyser (1.2 MW) locally generates 240 cubic meters of renewable hydrogen per hour by making use of excess on-site photovoltaic energy." A catalyst then combines the CO2 and the hydrogen into methane gas in a reactor built by a French company called Atmostat. The methane "is then liquified and used to fuel natural gas lorries," Climeworks says. As Ars notes, Climeworks' previous carbon-capture plant "captured carbon out of ambient air using a filter of base amines that would bind with more acidic CO2." The carbon that was captured was then sent to a greenhouse to speed plant growth.
"The second was based in Iceland at a geothermal plant that released some volcanic CO2," reports Ars. "Climeworks' small plant captures that carbon and injects it back into the ground, where mineral reactions help the CO2 bind with basalt, essentially storing the gas as a rock."
It should be buried as rock or coal to be environmentally friendly instead of environmentally neutral.
That would be idiotic. As long as there is net demand for methane, using energy to pump it into the ground, while using energy elsewhere to pump it out of the ground, purify, and transport it, is just stupid.
Here's a new vocabulary word for you: fungible (hint: it is something that methane is).
Kerosene is the current oil supply chain bottleneck. Doesn't matter if we cut down use of other oil distillates. Planes need the kerosene, and you get a very specific amount of kerosene from oil that doesn't vary to a significant degree between various oils.
That means that even if we were to say cut our use of gasolene, we can't afford to refine less oil, because growing civil aviation needs more kerosene. If we can actually generate kerosene from this process with any kind of meaningful cost effectiveness, we stand to benefit tremendously from less need to refine oil.
FC Cars are nothing like you describe. Range is 300+ miles. Fueling is under 5 minutes from empty and generally un-eventful. The H2 supply chain breaks down far more often than the cars or the fueling stations (and the supply chain is getting better).
H2 tanks are extensively tested including such items as shooting them with 50 cal bullets. It takes two bullets to the same location to pierce the tank, and then it is a leak and the H2 gas that goes straight up. If it ignites, all the flame goes straight up as well. It is very hard to create an explosive mixture, and even then the explosive over-pressure is not really an explosion (a refinery in Wilmington, CA had a very large H2 tank explode a number of years ago. I felt the pressure wave 15 miles away. Even though many people were on site, no one was even injured.) I always wondered if H2 was a greenhouse gas. The answer is no as it actually escapes into space and literally leaves the planet (Helium does this as well). There are design differences, but generally H2 is far safer than gasoline car. Even a BEV car has real safety issues. Did you know the fire department needs to "saw" two spots on a Tesla Model 3 to break the high voltage "loop".
Reliability is also very good with 100K miles warranty and almost no required maintenance. Even the breaks last forever. I drive my FC car every day and it is an excellent car that gets me where I want to go in safety and comfort. My closest H2 station is about 4 miles away with 2 others within 15 miles. I see other FC cars on the road most days. 5100+ in California. http://www.cafcp.org./