“I was watching the Republican debates and every candidate was talking about energy security,” Byron said recently during a break from a convention at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Elton is a tall, very charismatic advocate not only for his company, but also for the idea of energy independence as a reachable, imperative national goal. He went on to note that 25% of our trade deficit is due to imports of oil at $1 Billion a day, and that $4.00+ a gallon at the pump is heavily subsidized by tax dollars through subsidies for oil, military incursions and other externalises. What Carbon Sciences is doing is developing a unique process for turning CO2 (carbon dioxide), combined with methane or natural gas, into a “drop in” fuel. By drop in he means that it works with existing pumps and doesn’t require its own infrastructure, a drawback of liquid or compressed natural gas as a transportation fuel.
According to Carbon Sciences, there are four methods for turning gas into a liquid (syngas) that can be used as a transportation fuel:
Steam Reforming — Energy intensive, consumes lots of water
Partial Oxidation— Consumes pure oxygen, a capital intensive and potentially hazardous feedstock
Autothermal Reforming — Partial oxidation with some help from steam
Dry Reforming — Consumes abundant and often negative value CO2, but requires a robust catalyst that can sustain the reaction at an industrial scale.
Source : ENN
