The Tesla Model 3 is on the way and the world is celebrating a shift towards Zero Tailpipe Emissions \u2014 but of course, with the Tesla, you\u2019re driving the grid and the grid is still dirty.<\/p>\n
A more powerful goal is a shift towards Zero Lifecycle Emission \u2014 that is, no net carbon at all. Using waste is the first and best path (and even can result in negative lifecycle emissions \u2014 cleaning the atmosphere as you drive) \u2014 but there are limits on residues and already we are hearing squawking from competing users of waste fats, oils and greases. As waste acquires value, others will cry boo-hoo, too.<\/p>\n
The most scalable solution is liquid fuels that use water, captured CO2 and renewable electricity.<\/p>\n
The New Thinking<\/p>\n
Thinkers have been coming around to the realization that this might be the most sustainable path, notwithstanding the joys of electric vehicles. This article by B. Zhao from Energy Policy typifies that New Thinking.<\/p>\n
Why will the dominant alternative transportation fuels be liquid fuels, not electricity or hydrogen\u201d Energy Policy Vol108, September 2017, Pages 712-714.<\/p>\n
And Bill Gates stated recently that a \u201cprocess that uses sunlight to produce hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon\u201d has a potential he calls \u201cMagical. With liquids you don\u2019t have the intermittency problem batteries. You can put the liquid into a big tank and burn it whenever you want. If we can improve the efficiency of this process, we may produce ample clean fuel for the vehicles of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Solar fuels? They\u2019ve been much thought about, and occasionally big chunks of work have been funded privately or publicly. If we can convert solar energy directly via a photovoltaic route we can make use of about \u00b1 20% solar energy capture as the basis for liquid solar \u201dfuels instead of first producing biomass with \u00b1 1-2% solar energy capture using plants. We wrote about this technological tip of the spear recently, here.<\/p>\n
Where are we in development?<\/p>\n
ANTECY has been working on this route since 2010, and reports now that \u201cWe have now come to the conclusion that it is technically and economically feasible, making use of electrolysis to produce hydrogen from solar (or wind, hydroelectric or geothermal) energy and converting the hydrogen produced with clean and concentrated carbon dioxide to methanol or any other (preferably) liquid hydrocarbon.<\/p>\n
Paul O\u2019Connor and his ANTECY team report that \u201ceconomically, this route becomes feasible when the cost of renewable electricity drops to about US$ 3 cents\/KwH.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EU is paying close attention. The European Fund for Regional development Oost Nederland (EFRO) recently awarded a \u20ac2M grant to a team led by ANTECY and including Wageningen University & Research and Bronswerk Heat Transfer. Shell Global Solutions is also supporting the project for improvement, development and demonstration of the carbon dioxide capture technology.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at ANTECY\u2019s work in more detail.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor reports: \u201cThe technology to do so is already available and in fact state-of-the art except for the step to economically harvest carbon dioxide (and water) directly from the air. Direct Air Capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide will be necessary as in many cases no secure carbon dioxide point sources are present or will be present in the future at the locations where the lowest cost electricity (to produce Hydrogen) is available. Furthermore it may be prudent not to rely too much on carbon dioxide point sources of fossil origin to produce zero carbon emissions fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Direct Air Capture is no small thing. The problem with CO2 concentration is that it is too high to support a cool climate, but too low to be easily Hoovered from the sky. The concentration we are worried over is 400ppm, that\u2019s 400 parts per million. That means you have to capture 2500 tons of air for every ton of carbon dioxide \u2014 and right there, that\u2019s the reason we have left the job of capturing carbon to plants \u2014 not industrial plants, just the garden kind.<\/p>\n
Direct Air Capture Technology<\/p>\n
And where are we with Direct Air Capture?<\/p>\n
You may have read recently that Climeworks has opened its first small commercial plant near Zurich, and will capture around 900 tons of CO2 per year. A great step but a tiny one \u2014 it would take 25 million of these to capture the world\u2019s annual CO2 emissions, the inventors say.<\/p>\n
Limitations on the current approaches?<\/p>\n
The existing technologies to capture carbon dioxide from gaseous streams are based on liquid or solid amines, which are sensitive to degradation particularly in the presence of oxygen. Degradation will result in a lower stability, meaning a higher consumption and therefore costs. The degradation products are toxic or even carcinogenic, leading to health and safety issues.<\/p>\n
Antecy\u2019s DAC technology called CAIR: \u201dCarbon from Air\u201d is based on a robust non-amine inorganic solid sorbent, which has several advantages in terms of higher stability, and no environmental risks such as from potentially toxic amine degradation and emissions.<\/p>\n
Some highlights:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Captures and adsorbs Carbon (CO2) from air and\/or CO2 rich flue gas
\n\u2022 Energy efficient (low \u0394H)
\n\u2022 Desorbs CO2 at temperatures < 80oC, enabling use of low value heat ( e.g. electrolysis)
\n\u2022 Smart heat integration with water splitting\/electrolysis (H2) and methanol\/fuel synthesis
\n\u2022 Sorbent is stable and can be reused
\n\u2022 Sorbent (K2CO3, KHCO3) is environmentally friendly<\/p>\n
The Lifecycle Edge<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at a lifecycle analysis that Antecy developed:<\/p>\n
Note: The above table does not give the full story yet. We are still missing a full life cycle analysis for various options, including for instance the impact of battery disposal and\/or recycling.<\/p>\n
The pros and cons<\/p>\n
With every technological advance, we have to visit the Department of the Painful Tradeoffs and Uncertain Unwanted Consequences. After all, someone thought DDTs were a good idea, and chloroflourocarbons were a solution to a refrigeration problem before they landed us in ozone hell.<\/p>\n
On the negative side, the conversion efficiency of power (electricity) to fuel energy content is low \u2014 there is still a lot of energy lost in the conversion to fuels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Advances from the EU in direct carbon capture from air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,5571],"tags":[13689,10743],"supplier":[],"class_list":["post-45271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","category-co2-based","tag-carboncaputure","tag-useco2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45271"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=45271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}