1958 - Global Warming - It's NOT newly known

For FIFTY YEARS scientists have known about global warming. This excerpt is from the well known educational documentary "Unchained Goddess" produced by Frank Capra for Bell Labs for their television program "The Bell Telephone Hour." It was so well made, that it went on to live a continued life in middle school science classrooms across the nation for decades. Nearly half a century before Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth," this film was made. But what does it reveal? That our scientists have known for over two generations about this danger, but our politicians and citizenry have chosen to ignore the dangerous implications of this fact until it really is too late to avoid the preventable consequences. Perhaps we deserve our fate.

Electric Utilities’ Early Knowledge and Ongoing Deception on Climate Change

Utilities Knew 

Documenting Electric Utilities’ Early Knowledge and
Ongoing Deception on Climate Change From 1968-2017

The Energy and Policy Institute is a watchdog organization working to expose attacks on renewable energy and counter misinformation by fossil fuel and utility interests. It does not receive funding from for-profit corporations or trade associations. 

https://legacy-assets.eenews.net/open_files/assets/2017/07/25/document_gw_08.pdf

Convert carbon dioxide into ethylene

 https://phys.org/news/2020-09-effective-pathway-carbon-dioxide-ethylene.html

A research team from Caltech and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has demonstrated a promising way to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into ethylene—an important chemical used to produce plastics, solvents, cosmetics and other important products globally.

The scientists developed nanoscale copper wires with specially shaped surfaces to catalyze a chemical reaction that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while generating ethylene—a valuable chemical simultaneously. Computational studies of the reaction show the shaped catalyst favors the production of ethylene over hydrogen or methane. A study detailing the advance was published in Nature Catalysis.

"We are at the brink of fossil fuel exhaustion, coupled with global climate change challenges," said Yu Huang, the study's co-corresponding author, and professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA. "Developing materials that can efficiently turn greenhouse gases into value-added fuels and chemical feedstocks is a critical step to mitigate global warming while turning away from extracting increasingly limited fossil fuels. This integrated experiment and theoretical analysis presents a sustainable path towards carbon dioxide upcycling and utilization."

Currently, ethylene has a global annual production of 158 million tons. Much of that is turned into polyethylene, which is used in plastic packaging. Ethylene is processed from hydrocarbons, such as natural gas.

"The idea of using copper to catalyze this reaction has been around for a long time, but the key is to accelerate the rate so it is fast enough for industrial production," said William A. Goddard III, the study's co-corresponding author and Caltech's Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics. "This study shows a solid path towards that mark, with the potential to transform ethylene production into a greener industry using CO2 that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere."

Using copper to kick start the carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction into ethylene reaction (C2H4) has suffered two strikes against it. First, the initial chemical reaction also produced hydrogen and methane—both undesirable in industrial production. Second, previous attempts that resulted in ethylene production did not last long, with conversion efficiency tailing off as the system continued to run.

To overcome these two hurdles, the researchers focused on the design of the copper nanowires with highly active "steps"—similar to a set of stairs arranged at atomic scale. One intriguing finding of this collaborative study is that this step pattern across the nanowires' surfaces remained stable under the reaction conditions, contrary to general belief that these high energy features would smooth out. This is the key to both the system's durability and selectivity in producing ethylene, instead of other end products.

The team demonstrated a carbon dioxide-to-ethylene conversion rate of greater than 70%, much more efficient than previous designs, which yielded at least 10% less under the same conditions. The new system ran for 200 hours, with little change in conversion efficiency, a major advance for copper-based catalysts. In addition, the comprehensive understanding of the structure-function relation illustrated a new perspective to design highly active and durable CO2 reduction catalyst in action.

Huang and Goddard have been frequent collaborators for many years, with Goddard's research group focusing on the theoretical reasons that underpin chemical reactions, while Huang's group has created new materials and conducted experiments. The lead author on the paper is Chungseok Choi, a graduate student in materials science and engineering at UCLA Samueli and a member of Huang's laboratory.

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to ethanol

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-018-0027-5

• Article
• Open Access
• Published: 01 February 2019

Virus and bacteria inactivation by CO2 bubbles in solution

• Adrian Garrido Sanchis, 
• Richard Pashley & 
• Barry Ninham 

npj Clean Water volume 2, Article number: 5 (2019) Cite this article

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Abstract

The availability of clean water is a major problem facing the world. In particular, the cost and destruction caused by viruses in water remains an unresolved challenge and poses a major limitation on the use of recycled water. Here, we develop an environmentally friendly technology for sterilising water. The technology bubbles heated un-pressurised carbon dioxide or exhaust gases through wastewater in a bubble column, effectively destroying both bacteria and viruses. The process is extremely cost effective, with no concerning by-products, and has already been successfully scaled-up industrially.

Introduction

Wastewater usually contains human enteric viruses like hepatitis and rotavirus and bacteria like Escherichia coli. If this water is to be reused it has to be disinfected. Collivignarelli et al.1 found that ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and chemical treatments using chlorine, chlorine dioxide, peracetic acid or ozone were the most used technologies for wastewater disinfection. However, all these water disinfection technologies have limitations. For example, chlorine and chlorine dioxide react with organic compounds and form reactive chlorinated organic compounds that are hazardous to humans. In addition, chlorine needs at least 30 min contact time and is not able to eliminate Cryptosporidium. Chlorine dioxide has high management costs and is very unstable. Other disinfection methods such as ozone and UV irradiation are complex to operate and maintain. Rotavirus can be resistant to UV treatments and its efficiency is affected by the dissolved organic and inorganics in the wastewater, as well as its colour and turbidity.2 Paracetic acid increases chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) due to the formation of acetic acid.1 Therefore, a major challenge exists to develop new, energy-efficient technologies to address these problems.

Here we report on one such candidate technology for sterilisation that seems to do the job. It uses atmospheric pressure bubbles of CO2 in a new device (ABCD). If this process successfully inactivates MS2 virus (ATCC15597-B1) and E. coli C-3000 (ATCC15597), that are surrogates for enteric pathogens, then this technology will be able to inactivate real waterborne viruses and bacteria for water reuse without the need for (high energy) boiling.

In preceding work3,4 we conducted different experiments where the bubble diameter of 1–3 mm was measured using high speed cameras. An earlier variant we called the hot bubble column evaporator (HBCE) process.5,6,7 It used hot air bubbles of 1–3 mm diameter and was operated in the temperature range of 150–250 °C. The bubbles transferred heat to surrounding water and thermally inactivated dispersed viruses and bacterial cells. At the same time, low, steady-state solution temperatures in the range of 42–55 °C were maintained.8 An instantaneous transient hot surface layer must also form around the rising, initially hot, air bubbles. The inactivation process clearly involves collisions of bacteria or viruses with the hot air bubbles5,6 and the surrounding heated layers.7 Other gases (air, N2, O2 and Argon) achieved similar inactivation results, at 200 °C inlet gas temperatures for viruses and at 150 °C for bacteria.9 However, CO2 gas, at the same inlet gas temperature, is far superior with much higher inactivation rates at lower temperatures than with other gases.9 Hence, we here embark on a more thorough study of the effects of CO2 bubbling on viral and bacterial inactivation in pure sodium chloride solutions, using the HBCE device at atmospheric pressure with the acronym ABCD.

Many waste disposal industries like landfills, bio-gas plants and coal power plants emit large amounts of CO2. Hence, the potential use of CO2 bubbles in water treatment processes to sterilise water at atmospheric pressure offers an attractive new technology at the very least. Earlier we showed9 too that the heat generated in exhaust combustion gases that contain CO2 can also be used to increase the performance of this new sterilisation treatment. That we will also take further.

The process is very different to others that involve CO2. Thus, many authors10 have shown that pressurised CO2 in a range of 5 to 1000 atm can achieve viral and bacterial inactivation.

High-pressure carbon dioxide has been proposed as a cold pasteurisation alternative for more than 25 years.11 The new ABCD reactor, described here, achieves equivalent or better results but without the need for pressurisation, i.e., at just 1 atm. The process has been patented by the University of New South Wales as Australian Patent Application No. 2017904797.

Renewable fuel from carbon dioxide with the aid of solar energy

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-renewable-fuel-carbon-dioxide-aid.html 

 Recent results have shown that it is possible to use their technique to selectively produce methane, carbon monoxide or formic acid from carbon dioxide and water. The study has been published in ACS Nano.

Calgary researchers turn greenhouse gases into carbon fibre

https://globalnews.ca/news/5253283/calgary-researchers-turn-greenhouse-gases-into-carbon-fibre/

Calgary researchers turn greenhouse gases into carbon fibre

A researcher at the University of Calgary says she has developed a method of turning greenhouse gases into valuable carbon nanofibres.

Mina Zarabian came up with the concept while completing her doctorate in chemical and petroleum engineering at the university’s Schulich School of Engineering.

The nanofibres have multiple industrial uses that included replacing metal in cars and airplanes, wind turbines, battery manufacturing and construction.

“This is a process that turns natural gas and CO2, carbon dioxide, both known as greenhouse gases, into solid carbon nanofibres which can be sold in a brick or powder for a lot of industries that utilize them,” Zarabian said during a tour of her lab.

Lines from tanks of carbon dioxide and methane feed into a small chamber the size of a balloon.
Once it’s exposed to extreme heat, black powdery residue appears in a glass tube. A piece of metal in the tube acts as a catalyst.

“It’s the secret sauce of our process,” said Zarabian.

“The good thing is it’s not something very magical or expensive or platinum or some super-fancy expensive metal. It’s a normal metal which can be found anywhere with a high amount of resources.”

Carbon fibres are expensive and currently cost about $100 per kilogram, she said.

Zarabian would like to see the technology eventually installed at natural gas power plants

Liquid light, making various chemicals from co2.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Light

http://llchemical.com/


Liquid Light is a New Jersey-based company that develops and licenses electrochemical process technology to make chemicals from carbon dioxide (CO₂).^[1][2] The company has more than 100 patents and patent applications for the technology that can produce multiple chemicals such as ethylene glycol, propylene, isopropanol, methyl-methacrylate and acetic acid. Funding has been provided by VantagePoint Capital Partners, BP Ventures, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, Osage University Partners and Sustainable Conversion Ventures.^[3][4] Liquid Light’s technology can be used to produce more than 60 chemicals, but its first targeted process is for the production of monoethylene glycol(MEG) which has a $27 billion annual market.^[2] MEG is used to make a wide range of consumer products including plastic bottles, antifreeze and polyester fiber

Jennifer Wilcox | TED2018 A new way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere

Jennifer Wilcox

|

TED2018

A new way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere

https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_wilcox_a_new_way_to_remove_co2_from_the_atmosphere

Open NanoCarbon Wiki - CO2 sequestration

https://opennanocarbon.atlassian.net

micro-algae lamp absorbs 150 times more CO2 than a tree!

micro-algae lamp absorbs 150 times more CO2 than a tree!
http://www.sciencedump.com/content/microalgae-lamp-absorbs-150-times-more-co2-tree

Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero!

At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.

carbon sequestration

I think carbon sequestration is something that we will need to do if we don't want to see all of our coastal cities under water.
( Wiki - carbon sequestration )

The problem is all of the stored hydrocarbon we burned in the past it's going to take almost as much energy to put back.

This week 9/30/09 opens the South African Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) conference.

CCS technology can help SA reduce emissions

"We cannot neglect any technology that will assist us to address the matters of energy security and climate change" - Republic of South Africa Minister of Energy, Elizabeth Dipuo Peters.

Why is the US not leading this?

Storage must be at depths below 800 m, as the CO₂ becomes a super-critical liquid and occupies less space. It is not trapped in a cavernous space, but within porous rock, like a sponge. It is trapped underground by the cap rock, as well as by the capillary action of the ‘sponge' storage rock; and, in the case of deep saline aquifers, it is trapped by dissolving in the water; and, finally it is trapped through a process of calcification as the gas becomes part of the rock - the reaction takes time, but at this stage storage is permanent.

Good stuff.