Recently, a professor at Harvard University in the United States said that a company he founded is expected to achieve industrial-scale atmospheric CO2 recovery treatment by 2021, and can convert CO2 into gasoline! On June 7, a team of scientists from Harvard University and Carbon Engineering announced that they found a cheap and effective way to directly extract carbon dioxide pollutants from the atmosphere.
If their technology can achieve industrial scale, it will change the human perspective on climate change issues. It will become a decisive new tool for mankind to effectively resist global warming, but it is also possible that this strategy will affect delicate political issues and make society very Difficult to adapt to changes.
The study shows that in the future it may seem that the mysterious science and technology in science fiction will be transformed into real life. People may soon be able to make gasoline and aviation fuel from limestone, hydrogen and air. It implies that a huge industrial-scale carbon wash network will eventually be built to remove greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere.
Most importantly, this latest technology deserves a lot of attention because it promises to use cost-effective methods to remove carbon dioxide. In 2011, a panel of experts assessed that the cost of removing one ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was at least $600.
The latest study pointed out that the minimum cost for carbon engineering companies to remove one ton of carbon from the atmosphere is $94 and the maximum is $232. According to this calculation, the average amount of carbon dioxide emitted from a car burning 1 gallon of gasoline will cost 1 to 2.5 dollars to clear.
Ken Caldeira, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institute, said: "If these costs are real, then this will be a very important result. This will open us up to use affordable funds without The climate can be stabilized on the premise of changing the entire energy system or changing everyone's behavior.†At present, the research team publishes the research report in the June 6 issue of the Joule magazine.
David Keith, a principal author of the study and a professor of applied physics at Harvard University, said: "What we are doing is to establish a process of 'direct aerial capture' and try to establish existing processes that are ubiquitous in the world. And on the basis of technology, this is why we think there is a reasonable possibility of scaling up.†It is reported that Keith is the founder and CEO of Carbon Engineering, and Carbon Engineering is committed to studying how to directly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Carbon Engineering stated that the newly announced technology has been tested at a small pilot plant in the Squamish region of British Columbia, Canada. At present, the company is actively seeking funding and plans to build a large-scale industrial manufacturing plant. Keith stated that the factory is expected to be completed by 2021.
Although the chemical process of this technology is more complex, it does not depend on the future of "Utopian Technology." In fact, Keith and colleagues have used a cooling tower for the air purification of a paper mill. It is divided into three main steps:
In the first step, outdoor air is drawn into the factory's "contactors" and exposed to alkaline liquids. These contactors are similar to industrial cooling towers - they have larger fans that draw in air from outside, and its inner lining is a corrugated plastic structure that allows as much air as possible to come in contact with the liquid. In a cooling tower, air is used to cool alkaline liquids; but in this cooling tower design, air is exposed to strong alkalis and carbon dioxide is a weak acid, so they tend to neutralize strong alkalis.
In the second step, the liquid containing carbon dioxide is brought into the factory where they will undergo a series of chemical reactions to separate the acidic substances from the strong alkali liquid. Alkaline liquids are cooled to solid particles and then slowly heated to convert them into a slurry. Similarly, these technologies have also been used in other chemical industries, Keith said, extracting carbon dioxide from carbonate solutions is the method used by almost all paper mills in the world.
In the third step, carbon dioxide is combined with hydrogen and converted into liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. To some extent, this is the most traditional operation process - oil companies use a chemical reaction process called "Fischer-Tropsch synthesis" every day to convert hydrocarbon gases into liquid fuels. But this is a key part of the carbon engineering company's operations, which can produce carbon-neutral hydrocarbons.
What does this mean? For example: If you burn carbon engineering company's gas in your own car, the car's exhaust pipe will release carbon dioxide pollutants and release it into the earth's atmosphere. But since these carbon dioxide gases originally come from the air, this type of emissions does not introduce any new carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, nor does it require the exploitation of new petroleum energy to drive your car.
In the end, a similar process can be used to isolate greenhouse gases, carbon engineering companies convert carbon dioxide gas into liquid fuels, bury them deep underground, thereby reducing the amount of heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere. But technology like this does not sell any products that carbon engineering companies bring, and there are no buyers who are interested in buying them.
Keith said: "The major markets in the near future are manufacturing carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels. We think the current method is a decarbonization transfer technology." On June 6, Keith spoke in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They are "very optimistic" about climate change, because these low-carbon fuel markets are more booming than in previous years, and at the same time, low-carbon power equipment such as solar and wind power are cheaper to build.
Other experts said they were inspired and encouraged by the latest research by Keith and his colleagues. However, they warned that the research report needs to spend time reviewing the cost budget and project progress, but everyone's enthusiasm is very high, and everyone's unanimous reaction is: ah! I hope to do this job!
Jennifer Wilcox, an associate professor at the Colorado School of Mines, said: “I’m not sure if the cost range in this research report is acceptable. I think the cost per ton of carbon processed through their technical methods can be reduced. $250 and it will be completed in the next five years."
Roger Aines, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Energy Project, said: "The carbon engineering company's improvement seems to be correct. I am evaluating the costs within the acceptable range that I expect. I I am very pleased."
Scott Hersey, associate professor of chemistry engineering at Franklin Olin College, said that, in my opinion, the most important part of this research report is that they have tested the technology in a prototype factory for several years. This is Very important, it provides a more convincing proof of fact than a simple calculation or calculation model.
Caldera said that this research report brings hope for adapting to climate change in the most complex economic fields and that it is the most difficult to decarbonize production areas in the process of human economic and social development (eg steel manufacturing, cement manufacturing and Long-haul aviation, etc.) may still continue to exist. We only need to pay for the removal of carbon dioxide.
He continued to point out that the global GDP is about 75 trillion -110 trillion US dollars, removing all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will consume 3-5% of the global GDP (if the cost of processing per ton of carbon is 100 US dollars). This is the upper limit of the cost of solving global climate problems, because there are many ways to reduce carbon emissions, which is lower than the cost of processing US$100 per ton of carbon.
Keith said: "If possible, the most important thing is to stop emitting carbon dioxide pollutants. My point is that we should insist on reducing emissions first. If we vote, my point of view is to reduce one ton of carbon dioxide, more than recycling one ton of carbon dioxide. The cost is lower.However, once we have cut carbon dioxide emissions significantly, we are very happy to see the emissions drop to zero. Perhaps after 10-15 years, we will be very pleased to see more large-scale CO2 reduction measures. â€
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