ZERO EMISSION BASELOAD POWER USING ONLY SUN AND SEAWATER

 It is estimated about 2000 billion tons of anthropogenic CO2 has been emitted and absorbed by both air and sea since the industrial revolution. Therefore, it is clear there is no need to source anymore Carbon from coal, oil, and gas. This basic fact is of paramount importance in solving the emission problem moving forward to a cleaner future. Any fossil fuel-based Carbon should be penalized with Carbon tax to avoid past mistakes of Carbon emissions. This is precisely what the Carbon Recycling Technology known as Ramana Power cycle (RPC) is based on, a technology developed and patented in Australia. It generates a Carbon negative renewable synthetic fuel known as RSMG (renewable synthetic methane gas) using Carbon dioxide and renewable Hydrogen both extracted from the sea. The process extracts not only Carbon dioxide and Hydrogen from seawater, but also pure Oxygen required for combustion along with de-ionized water for steam and condensers. The process uses only sun and seawater to solve one of the toughest problems of global warming and climate change humanity has ever faced. There can be no better technology than RPC that can solve not only global warming and climate change but also guarantees sustainable base load power generation with zero emissions!

The advantage of this process it uses existing power generation technology such as Allan-Fetvedt cycle using supercritical CO2 gas turbine in closed cycle mode. The only difference is it uses RSMG a renewable fuel instead of natural gas and Oxygen from seawater not from the air using ASU. About 99% of CO2 emitted from this power cycle is captured and converted into RSMG internally for recycling and the process continues to generate a baseload power (24 x 7) with Zero emission.

RPC thus solves the problem of CO2 emission, global warming, and climate change without using any fossil fuel and without any emissions at all. There is no need for energy storage like a huge stack of batteries for few hours of storage at an enormous cost. We can set up such baseload power plants at various parts of the world to cater to hundreds of homes, businesses, Cars (both electric and Hydrogen) and to continuous (24 x 7) process industries such as Steel, Aluminum and Caustic soda, etc

The above Zero-emission power plant can also be installed using LNG at the site as a start-up fuel and subsequently substituted with RSMG. The entire plant will be operated using only renewable energy and locally available water source in the absence of seawater. CRT offers the highest electrical efficiency of 65% of LHV of RSMG and above (more than that of the fuel cell) thus offering the lowest Levelized cost of power. An interesting fact about RSMG is it is an ideal fuel for Space X of Elon Musk with highest heating value, with no CO2 or Sulfur compounds and it is a Carbon negative fuel and it is RENEWABLE. CRT will be the first power plant to achieve a circular economy in a true sense setting an example for future energy projects.

CRT will be the first power plant to achieve a circular economy in a true sense setting an example for future energy projects.The biggest advantage of CRT is it does not require CO2 capturing for every cycle because the same CO2 is being recycled indefinitely (except for a make-up of any losses). In my personal opinion all other technologies such as CCS (carbon capture and storage) and CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) will not be the real solution. They are being promoted only for one purpose, namely to keep the existing and operating fossil fuel based plants running till end of their life. Otherwise it will serve no real purpose because there is no concrete use for CO2 on a larger scale. Products made out of captured CO2 will eventually emit CO2 back into the atmosphere at the point of application. It will only help to shift CO2 emissions from one place to another place and eventually into the atmosphere.

The above process can be readily demonstrated on a pilot scale to validate the concept for further commercialization and technology licensing.

 

 

Can CCS and CCUS lead us to achieve Net Zero emission by 2050?

 CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) and CCUS (Carbon capture, utilization, and storage) technologies are essentially “after thought” to fix the CO2 emission by 2050. It also indirectly encourages continuity of fossil fuel usage for a foreseeable future to help those industries who have invested billions of dollars in creating their infrastructures such as “fracking”. Fracking generates hundreds of cubic meters of toxic effluent whose salinity is more than ten times that of the salinity of seawater.  It is an environmental nightmare. Are these technologies practicable? Will they pay $100 or more for a ton of CO2 to capture and then transport hundreds of kms distance to find a suitable site; and even if they pay what will be the cost implications? Certainly, their cost of production will sharply increase, which will be necessarily passed on to the consumers whether it is a power industry or oil and gas industry. Why some of the CCS projects are dormant in many parts of the world? They claim injecting CO2 into existing oil field will increase oil production. Is there an evidence to substantiate such claims? But how many such oil fields exist in Australia, for example? The same question should be raised for all the countries around the world especially those oil importing countries like India, for example.  IEA should publish necessary data to back up they claim that CCS and CCUS will lead to zero emission by 2050. In the absence of such data and hard evidence and the cost and economic analysis these projects will lead us nowhere? Without imposing Carbon tax as a financial incentive (not as a penalty) will these industries embark upon such a venture? The Carbon tax cannot be less than $250/Mt (because Carbon capture from air, for example, cost more than $150 to 200/Mt depending upon the maturity of technology). Now they want to utilize capture Carbon to produce synthetic fuel with green Hydrogen. Green hydrogen is awfully expensive, renewable energy is costly and storing them is prohibitively costly and converting them to Hydrogen by electrolysis is even more expensive. Despite all these expensive measures can zero emission be achieved by 2050. The cost of green fuel will be 10 times more than fossil fuels currently used. Will consumers afford to pay for such high fuel cos? Many questions remain unanswered. The word “Carbon capture” implies continuity of fossil fuel. It is like tobacco industry. At least in cigarette packs there is a warning ” smoking is injuries to health” but there is no such warnings in CCS or CCUS because the “captured CO2 will be released into atmosphere slowly at the point of usage in the near future , for example, Urea made out of captured CO2 will slowly release CO2 back into atmosphere by soli enzymes. Conversion to “concrete” or “nano Carbon” are claimed to be potential products but only future can tell. We are talking about “billions of tons of CO2”. Only carbon recycling and circular economy will be the answer and not CCS or CCUS.