The report Methanol Solutions to CO2 Emerging by the Methanol Institute is an eye opener. It makes the case that converting carbon dioxide into useful products and making new clean fuel technologies is one of the best ways to address global warming in a scalable and market friendly way.
“George Olah, Nobel Prize Laureate, University of Southern California professor, and author of “Beyond Oil and Gas:The Methanol Economy,†is looking to put his concepts into action. UOP, an Illinois-based chemical producer, has announced a partnership with the USC Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute to develop and commercialize new technology to convert carbon dioxide into methanol. According to Olah, “The development of this technology could have significant impact on global energy security and global warming by converting carbon dioxide into useful products and making new clean fuel technologies.†Under the partnership with UOP over the next three to four years, research will begin CO2 conversion to methanol from highly concentrated sources such as coal-burning power plants, and eventually work toward converting CO2 directly from the atmosphere. The USC researchers are not alone in the quest to sequester CO2 through methanol. In Iceland, Carbon Recycling International captures CO2 from industrial emissions and converts carbon dioxide to ultra clean fuel. The sources of emissions are from basic infrastructure industrial processes including aluminum smelting, ferro silicon manufacturing, cement production and coal-fired power generation. The fuel is high octane gasoline, ultra low sulfur diesel and methanol for existing automobiles and future hybrid flexible automobiles.
Set America Free has long contended that true fuel flexibility can only be achieved if we open the door to other alcohols and ethers–in addition to ethanol. The flex fuel cars currently sold in the U.S. are only warrented to run on ethanol. If we can indeed convert CO2 into fuel we must allow methanol to compete in the marketplace and make sure flex fuel cars are capable of burning the entire spectrum of alcohols.
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