Cleantech: Powering Transportation with Geothermal Power

Renewable methanol made by mixing captured carbon dioxide emissions and water with electricity from geothermal and other renewable resources could help California and other regions cut greenhouse gases and break free from fossil fuel. An Icelandic company is making headway on renewable methanol with a new commercial scale production facility in the geothermal and wind energy rich island nation. Carbon Recycling International is perfecting the technology for making renewable methanol at its George Olah Renewable Methanol Plant. Olah is a University of Southern California chemistry professor who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for his work in conceptualizing what he calls the methanol economy. The plant makes 500,000 gallons/year of methanol, which is blended into gasoline sold in Reykjavik. After expansion this year, production is expected to reach about 1.25 million gallons/year. The plant makes the methanol by using electricity from the nearby Svartsengi Geothermal Power Plant to breakdown water through electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen. It then combines the hydrogen with carbon dioxide emissions captured from the geothermal plant through a patented process to make methanol. Carbon Recycling advisor Paul Wuebben explains that it’s common for geothermal plants to release carbon dioxide, which comes up out of the ground with steam in many locations. According to Northern Arizona University, geothermal plants can emit as much as one-tenth of the carbon dioxide emitted by a typical coal burning power plant. Other research shows even higher emissions rates in some locations. Carbon Recycling’s philosophy is to turn the carbon dioxide into usable energy for transportation instead of letting it go into the atmosphere. The company worked with Olah to essentially reverse engineer a methanol fuel cell the chemistry professor helped invent. The fuel cell turns methanol into an electric current, water, and carbon dioxide. The company’s patented process turns electricity, water, and carbon dioxide into methanol. Eventually, according to Wuebben, Carbon Recycling plans to plans to tap captured carbon dioxide from conventional power plants for its methanol production process. Good bets for locating the facilities are areas where there are existing fossil fuel power plants and available wind resources to power the methanol making process. Olah believes that using captured carbon dioxide to make methanol is superior to storing it underground or deep in the ocean because eventually the stored gas will find its way back into the atmosphere. Looking ahead, Olah envisions taking carbon dioxide out of the Earth’s atmosphere itself to make methanol, with the operation powered by renewable energy.

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Cleantech: Powering Transportation with Geothermal Power

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