Bill Gates Invests In Verdox’s Carbon Capture Technology
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
Bill Gates has invested in a carbon capture start-up. His Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund has taken part in an $80 million fundraising for Verdox, a Massachusetts-based business whose technology aims to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air.
I have my doubts that this technology will ever be economic, especially as plant, trees and in particular rain forests, do a good job at using the carbon dioxide. Planting trees is also one of those feel-good community activities.
This last paragraph gives a few details of the process.
Verdox, which is a spinout from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims that its system is cheaper and more efficient. It uses a special plastic, which when charged with electricity, can extract CO2 from a mixture of gases. A change in voltage releases the CO2.
It is a process with a good pedigree, but you’ve still got to find a way to store or use the carbon dioxide.
Plants worked out how to do that eons ago.
Thoughts On The Cambo Oil Field
There is an article in The Times today which is entitled Sturgeon Faces Backlash After Shell Pulls Out Of North Sea Oilfield.
I have been following the technology of Carbon Capture and Use and some very good ideas have come forward in the last couple of years.
- Carbon dioxide is becoming increasingly important in the growing of flowers, salad vegetables, soft fruits and tomatoes in greenhouses.
- At COP26, Australian company, Mineral Carbonation International won an award for their process that turns carbon dioxide into building materials like blocks and plasterboard.
- A big investment was also made recently in an Italian company, who are using the properties of liquid and gaseous carbon dioxide to store energy.
- Carbon dioxide has for years made a good fire extinguisher, which can’t be said for some chemicals currently used.
- I suspect that some clever chemists are working on using carbon dioxide to create sustainable aviation fuel.
If the number of ideas for the use of carbon dioxide continues to increase, I can see gas-fired power stations being built, that are also used to produce much-needed high-quality carbon dioxide.
It should also be noted, that many like me, live in houses that are unsuitable for the fitting of heat pumps at an economical cost.
So we must wait for better technology or for hydrogen to be piped into our houses.
In the meantime, we will have to rely on gas. Or freeze!
I don’t know whether Cambo will produce any gas, but if it doesn’t, I can’t see much point in developing it.
Perhaps, Shell would prefer to develop a gas field.
Energy Dome Secures Funding, Partner For New CO2 Energy Storage Projects
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Renewables Now.
This is the first paragraph.
Energy Dome SpA announced on Tuesday that it has closed a funding round securing USD 11 million (EUR 9.7m) to finalise the construction of a demonstration 2.5-MW/4-MWh carbon dioxide (CO2) battery storage project in Sardinia and to speed up business growth.
Note.
- It appears that Energy Dome has weaponised carbon dioxide against climate change.
- Providing 2.5 MW for over an hour and a half is an impressive performance.
- I think this project has the style we associate with Italy and Italians.
I have found their website at energydome.com and behind their energy storage system is unusual technology.
Their web site says this about their choice of storage medium.
CO2 is the perfect fluid to store energy cost effectively in a closed thermodynamic process as it is one of the few gases that can be condensed and stored as a liquid under pressure at ambient temperature. This allows for high density energy storage without the need to go at extreme cryogenic temperatures.
That is breathtakingly simple!
The main tank for the gaseous carbon dioxide is an inflatable dome and the liquid carbon dioxide is stored in steel tanks.
A turbine -compressor moves the carbon dioxide between gaseous and liquid states storing it appropriately.
It is very impressive! And I suspect extremely affordable!
BP Plans To Turn Teesside Into First Green Hydrogen Hub
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
BP plans to build Britain’s biggest “green hydrogen” facility on Teesside to produce the clean fuel for use in new hydrogen-powered lorries and other transport.
Note.
The plans appear to be ambitious starting with a £100 million investment to build a 60 MW electrolyser by 2025, which would rise to as much as 500 MW by 2030.
The electrolyser will be paired with an upwards of a billion pound one gigawatt facility called H2Teesside, that will produce blue hydrogen.
I think there could be more to this than meets the eye.
Using The Carbon Dioxide Rather than Storing It!
I followed the carbon dioxide pipe from the CF fertiliser plant on Teesside using Google maps after seeing a film about it on the BBC. It goes to the Quorn factory and a massive greenhouse. I do wonder, if BP is talking to other companies, who also have a need for large quantities of good quality carbon dioxide.
One could be an Australian company, called Mineral Carbonation International, who have developed a process to convert carbon dioxide into building products like blocks and plasterboard. MCI won a prize at COP26, so could BP be looking at integrating one of these plants into their complex on Teesside?
The Electrolysers
Will BP be purchasing their electrolysers for green hydrogen from ITM Power in Sheffield?
This press release from ITM Power is entitled 12MW Electrolyser Sale.
The customer is not named, but could this be a starter kit for BP?
Alstom’s Hydrogen Aventras
In Alstom And Eversholt Rail Sign An Agreement For The UK’s First Ever Brand-New Hydrogen Train Fleet, I came to this conclusion.
This modern hydrogen train from Alstom is what is needed.
I also felt there could be three similar trains; electric, battery-electric and hydrogen, which would help operators hedge their bets on what type of traction to use.
Teesside must be one of the more likelier places where the Hydrogen Aventras will be carrying passengers.
I wrote about this possibility in Alstom Hydrogen Aventras And Teesside.
A deal between BP and Alstom would surely be in the interest of both companies.
- Alstom would get a local hydrogen supply.
- BP would get a first sale.
- BP would get excellent publicity and a local demonstration of the possibilities of hydrogen.
It might even be possible to supply the hydrogen by pipeline.
Blue Hydrogen Is Not Clean Energy, Says Mining Tycoon
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
Producing “blue hydrogen” from natural gas is not a clean energy source and is being wrongly promoted as one by the oil and gas industry, a billionaire mining mogul has claimed.
The mining mogul is Andrew Forrest, who is the second richest person in Australia.
I feel he is only partly right, as there are processes coming through that use a catalyst to split the hydrogen from the carbon.
But like the taxi in the picture at the top of the article with Mr. Forrest, his words are all good publicity.
Incidentally, I do believe that in a few years, we’ll have the technology to use so much carbon dioxide efficiently, that we may see gas-fired power stations used to create both energy and carbon dioxide.
Mineral Carbonation International Win COP26 Clean Energy Pitch Battle
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Gasworld.
I have been following Australian company; Mineral Carbonation International for a few months and I am glad to see their technology, which turns carbon dioxide into bulk solid materials like building blocks and plasterboard, has now been recognised at a high level.
This is a screen capture of their home page.
The company certainly has a dream!
Read the website.
I believe that it is technology like this that will help to save the world from climate change.
I am glad that the great and good at COP26 are thinking along the same lines as myself!
Should We Stun Animals With Carbon Dioxide?
This post has been prompted by a text from a cardiologist. He said.
Current CO2 crisis reminds me that I think we should be using nitrogen to stun animals before slaughter, not CO2.
I heard a project on Farming Today a few months ago about CO2 stunning and thought it a great mistake as it can stimulate breathing and cause distress in some.
Have you seen anything on using nitrogen?
I haven’t but I must admit, I’ve had the thought myself and have also asked myself, if the gas in food packages is nitrogen, which would be logical to me.
I do have some thoughts.
The Best Beef I Ever Tasted
Over forty years ago, I used to buy beef from a local farmer in Suffolk.
- It would now be considered organic.
- All the farmer’s animals got the best care.
- He used to slaughter the animals himself in the field after giving them a pick of grass, using a captive bolt.
It was certainly, the best beef, I’ve ever tasted. But then the animals suffered no distress.
Medical Uses Of Carbon Dioxide
This is from the Wikipedia entry for carbon dioxide.
In medicine, up to 5% carbon dioxide (130 times atmospheric concentration) is added to oxygen for stimulation of breathing after apnea and to stabilize the O2/CO2 balance in blood.
This would appear to support the cardiologist’s text.
Is Carbon Dioxide Cheaper Than Nitrogen?
I have found these prices for ten litre cylinder of both gases.
- Carbon Dioxide – £78
- Nitrogen – £54
On this quick comparison, there would appear to not be a large difference.
Availability Of Nitrogen
Reading the Wikipedia entry for nitrogen, it appears to me, that production of oxygen-free nitrogen is not that difficult and this may explain the price comparison with carbon dioxide.
Nitrogen And The Death Penalty In The United States
This is a section called Euthanasia in the Wikipedia entry for nitrogen.
Nitrogen gas has become the inert gas of choice for inert gas asphyxiation, and is under consideration as a replacement for lethal injection in Oklahoma.
As nitrogen is an asphyxiant gas, some jurisdictions have considered inert gas asphyxiation by inhalation of pure nitrogen as a means of capital punishment (as a substitute for lethal injection).
I have been totally against the death penalty since meeting Jimmy O’Connor in the 1970s.
Conclusion
It strikes me that nitrogen could be used to stun animals as a more humane alternative to carbon dioxide.
Could Drax Power Station Solve The Carbon Dioxide Shortage?
Drax Power station is the largest power station in the UK, with a 2.6 GW capacity when burning biomass.
It has also been a regular target of environmental activists complaining of the power station’s carbon dioxide and other emissions.
But could it be an unlikely saviour to replace the carbon dioxide that comes from two fertiliser plants run by the CF Industries, that have been shut down by high gas prices?
I wrote about the shortage in Food Shortages Looming After Factory Closures Hit Production.
Two and a half years ago I wrote Drax Becomes First Wood-Burning Power Plant To Capture Carbon, which was based on an article in the Financial Times.
I said this about the report.
This news has been treated in a more sensationalist way by other news media and sites, but the FT gives it very straight.
Drax power station is running an experiment, that removes a tonne of carbon dioxide a day.
But that is only the start of the process and most of it is released to the atmosphere.
They are currently, looking for profitable and environmentally-friendly ways of disposal, including selling it to beer manufacturers.
Didn’t we have a carbon-dioxide shortage a few months ago?
Now is probably a good time to dig a little deeper into what Drax is doing.
The Wikipedia entry for Drax power station has a section called Carbon Capture And Storage.
This is the last paragraph of the section.
In May 2018, Drax announced a new carbon capture and storage pilot scheme that it would undertake in conjunction with the Leeds-based firm, C-Capture. The focus of this pilot will be on capturing carbon post combustion from the biomass burners as opposed to the coal burners. Drax will invest £400,000 into the project. The company, C-Capture, is a side company of the Department of Chemistry established at the University of Leeds. This would yield about 1-tonne (1.1-ton) of CO2 stored per day from the process, which could be sold on for use in the drinks industry. The pilot scheme was launched in February 2019. The capture of carbon from biomas burners is known as Bio Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS).
Who are C-Capture?
Their web site is very informative and this page is called Our Story, which explains the project at Drax.
We designed, built, and installed a pilot plant and have been operating it on site, with real flue gas, since early 2019. The data gathered from this trial is feeding directly into the design process for a full-scale plant, with a target of 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per day captured from one of Drax’s four biomass fired boilers. A recent development has been the installation of equipment to bottle the captured CO2 to allow other organisations to test their own developing technologies with genuine Drax derived CO2.
That looks like a result to me for C-Capture.
This page is called Technology and has a very neat interactive guide to how the technology works.
Conclusion
This company has some very special technology, that has a lot of applications.
It is also significant that Drax and BP have taken a shareholding in C-Capture.
Is Carbon Dioxide Not Totally Bad?
To listen to some environmentalists, there views on carbon dioxide are a bit like a variant of George Orwell’s famous phrase Four legs good, two legs bad from Animal Farm, with carbon dioxide the villain of the piece.
I have just read the Wikipedia entry for carbon dioxide.
For a start, we mustn’t forget how carbon dioxide, water and sunlight is converted by photosynthesis in plants and algae to carbohydrates, with oxygen given off as waste. Animals like us then breathe the oxygen in and breathe carbon dioxide out.
Various web sites give the following information.
- The average human breathes out 2.3 pounds of carbon dioxide per day.
- As of 2020, the world population was 7.8 billion.
This means humans breathe out 17.94 billion pounds of CO2 per day
This equates to 6548.1 billion pounds per year or 2.97 billion tonnes per year.
And I haven’t counted all the other animals like buffalo, cattle, elephants and rhinos, to name just a few large ones.
Wikipedia also lists some of the Applications of carbon dioxide.
- Precursor To Chemicals – Carbon dioxide can be one of the base chemicals used to make other important chemicals like urea and methanol.
- Foods – Carbon dioxide has applications in the food industry.
- Beverages – Carbon dioxide is the fizz in fizzy drinks.
- Winemaking – Carbon dioxide has specialist uses in winemaking.
- Stunning Animals – Carbon dioxide can be used to ‘stun’ animals before slaughter.
- Inert Gas – carbon dioxide has several uses, as it is an inert gas.
- Fire Extinguisher – Carbon dioxide is regularly used in fire extinguishers and fire protection systems.
- Bio Transformation Into Fuel – It has been proposed to convert carbon dioxide from power stations into biodiesel using a route based on algae.
- Refrigerant – Carbon dioxide can be used as a refrigerant. It was used before CFCs were developed and I know of a large Victorian refrigeration system on a farm in Suffolk, used on a store for apples, that still is in regular use that uses carbon dioxide.
- Dry Ice – The solid form of carbon dioxide has lots of applications, where cooling is needed.
Other important applications are under development.
- Agriculture – Carbon dioxide is piped to greenhouses to promote growth of crops. It is also used at higher concentrations to eliminate pests.
- Low Carbon Building Products – Companies like Mineral Carbonation International are developing ways of creating building products from carbon dioxide.
- Synthetic Rubber – Research is ongoing to create replacements for synthetic rubber.
I can only assume, that the demand for gaseous carbon dioxide will increase, as scientists and engineers get more innovative about using the gas.
Solving A Shortage Of Carbon Dioxide
At the present time, there is shortage of carbon dioxide, that I wrote about in Food Shortages Looming After Factory Closures Hit Production.
In the related post, I said this.
Perhaps we should fit carbon capture to a handy gas-fired power station, like SSE are planning to do at Keadby and use this carbon dioxide.
Consider.
- The Keadby complex of gas-fired power stations is close to a lot of depleted gas fields, some of which are in Lincolnshire and some are off-shore.
- Some gas fields are already being used to store natural gas imported from Norway.
- SSE plan to fit the later power stations with carbon capture.
I talk about SSE’s plans in Energy In North-East Lincolnshire.
If SSE were to build four large gas-fired power stations at Keadby, I calculated that they would produce 5.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
It could be used or stored in depleted gas fields according to demand.
But the complex at Keadby would not release any carbon emissions.
Could Carbon Capture Be A Nice Little Earner?
If demand for carbon dioxide continues to rise, I could see power companies installing carbon capture on gas-fired power stations to generate an extra income stream.
Incidentally, there are 55 operational gas-fired power stations in the UK, that can generate a total of 30 GW, which are owned by perhaps ten different companies.
Development of carbon capture systems could be helped by Government subsidy.
Conclusion
I have long forgotten all the calculations I did with gases, but I do know that when one molecule of methane combusts it produces two molecules of water and one of carbon dioxide.
So I am fairly convinced that if you took X cubic kilometres of natural gas out of a gas field, after combustion there wouldn’t be anything like as much volume of carbon dioxide to put back, specially if a proportion could be used profitably in other processes.
If we are going to use gas to generate zero-carbon power, we probably need to do it with gas fields under our control either onshore or in the seas around our coasts. This is because the depleted gas fields can be used to store the carbon.
Gas-fired power stations with carbon capture supporting industries that need supplies of carbon dioxide will become a large part of our energy economy.
Food Shortages Looming After Factory Closures Hit Production
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
Acute food shortages were feared last night after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down.
In some ways, this is rather ironic, when on the one hand we are trying to stop the emission of carbon dioxide and on the other we haven’t got enough for important uses in the food industry.
Perhaps we should fit carbon capture to a handy gas-fired power station, like SSE are planning to do at Keadby and use this carbon dioxide.
If the shortage continues, there’ll be no dry ice for the pantomimes this Christmas.
The Anonymous Widower 