Gene machine: A Codexis researcher operates a high-volume liquid-handling system used to make gene variants--part of a process for engineering new enzymes.
Codexis
Genetically engineered enzymes are the key to a new carbon-capture method.
Adding carbon-capture technology to a conventional coal plant can nearly double the price of the electricity it produces. This fact represents one of the big obstacles to passing legislation to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions. Now researchers at Codexis, based in Redwood City, CA, are using genetically engineered enzymes to make carbon-dioxide capture less expensive--their method could increase electricity costs by less than a third.
The new enzymes increase the efficiency, by a factor of 100, of a solvent used to capture carbon dioxide. This promises to decrease the energy needed to capture and store the greenhouse gas. The researchers developed new ways to engineer enzymes that can operate at the high temperatures inside a coal plant's smokestack.
The standard way to capture CO2 is to use a solvent called monoethanolamine (MEA). Carbon dioxide is absorbed by the solvent, which separates it from the other flue gases. To store the carbon dioxide it has to be freed by applying heat--this produces a pure stream of carbon dioxide that can be compressed and permanently sequestered. The energy required to do this decreases the power output of a coal plant by about 30 percent. Combined with the extra equipment and materials needed to capture the CO2, this increases the cost of the electricity produced by roughly 80 percent. Codexis's approach could limit this cost increase to 35 percent or less, says James Lalonde, the company's vice president of biochemistry and engineering R&D.
Researchers at Codexis genetically modified an enzyme, called carbonic anhydrase, involved with respiration in many organisms, including humans. Carbonic anhydrase helps a solvent called methyl diethanolamine (MDEA) bind with carbon dioxide. The most challenging problem was altering the enzymes so they could survive at the high temperatures found in smokestacks. The enzymes can survive at temperatures around 25 °C, but quickly stop working at temperatures higher than 55 °C to 65 °C.
OPX Biotechnologies uses genetic engineering to speed the development of organisms that make chemicals and fuel.
Sandia scientists successfully test a machine that creates fuel from carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide captured from power plants could make geothermal energy more practical.
How about separation of CO2=C+O2
Why not improving and developing technology by separating back CO2 = C + O2. If science can do that separation of CO2, climate change issues become an archive.
Re: How about separation of CO2=C+O2
We know plants can separate CO2 through the process of photosynthesis UV + water. Plants generate O2 and carbon in a form of wood or carbohydrates. Maybe that's more economical and safer than those capturing and compressing which is unstable due pressure.
It takes energy to seperate CO2.
The only way to not add to the problem is to tap renewable energy or nuclear whilst reducing its creation.
Im sure if we tapped the solar energy from space and sent it to Earth(via radiation) then employed that energy to remove CO2 we would indeed succeed over time. However we dont have that technology at the moment. I dare say the Nuclear reactors we have today are taxed to the limit as well and likely do not provide enough energy for our use, let alone CO2 removal.
Hence we are left with only 1 option at the moment and thats the reduction of CO2.
Eventually technology will catch up and allow us to remove CO2 cleanly. However the equation then revolves around the time frame and the negative effects of excessive CO2.
I can't see any reason why we dont employ renewables to create permanent CO2 storage at the moment as they do when they make diamonds.
It is sensible to expect diamond technology to expand to include the creation of structures using this carbon. I would appreciate R&D monies to be placed in this area. In this respect the diamond based industry would thrive as we are able to create more complex items than just stones and drill bits.
Imagine car windows or the whole car that dont need to be changed, buildings that can be built with significantly more strength. Ball bearings that never fail. Chains that never break. Space ships/stations created in space with parts that are almost indestructible.
is incredibly energy intensive. I don't mean just the extra 30% to catch CO2.
TV Special - one of those 'how its made' types showed FL company creating diamonds with seeds they placed in huge high pressure anvils then cooking them under pressure for weeks.
You have the right idea tho.
It is much cheaper to create carbon fibers from CO2 than diamonds. Use carbon fibers and sheets in various forms to create sheetrock replacement, girders, re-inforcement for concrete that doesn't rust then expand and crack the concrete. It could be used pretty much anywhere fiberglass is used currently.
I think Boeing just created a mostly composite jet. bicycles, cars, buildings, furniture, pretty much anything can be made from carbon compounds. Plants use it as a basic building block in form of CO2. Wood is basically carbon with some oxygen, nitrogen and other elements thrown in.
While it really wouldn't matter if some CO2 escaped if we put it underground, it makes sense to build stuff out of it. We have billions of people who all need 'stuff', places to put their 'stuff', places to live and work, and cars to carry their 'stuff'. They need a place to grow stuff and stuff grows better with carbon compounds like charcoal or carbon fibers in the soil.
Population will just go up and probably stabilize in the low double digit billions. Short of that 2029 asteriod that will come between the moon and earth wiping us out,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis
there will be LOTS of people around the world, all capable of using up carbon in various forms.
I don't see why CO2 has to be sequestered. It's an old ENRON-Al Gore scam. Allen Siddons is a radiochemist who has shown most of the heat transfer is by conduction and convection. There's not enough CO2 in the air to make an nat's ass worth of difference. Besides, CO2 levels of 350 and higher are good for plant growth, ask any greenhouse owner, they will pumpup levels 2 to 3 times over atmospheric levels. CO2 should be allowed to go to 500 or even 600 ppm for that reason.
Satellite and balloon sonar temp measurements show no troposphere warming for the last decade since 98. Most warming appearss to follow the Sun's irradiance levels. Sea ice has been increasing including the arctic. Bullis is either a sucker for AGW or he's on the gravy train of climate alarmism.
If you want truth about climate change then check out icecap.us, the newsmax of climate events. The AGW scare is part of the new world order scheme.
We are more likely to be heading for a mini ice event for the next 3 decades. The next ice age could be next to follow after another passing warming bubble of several more decades (there have been several in the near past). If you know history it's the warm periods where civilizations have advanced most.
Where do they usually get carbon for materials anyway?
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed
judbarovski
11 Comments
gases separation by membranrs
i think membranes for sepatation of gases to be cheapest and most energy effective technology. May be by membranes handicape reversive mode, if one step process would be not enough full.
Reply