Several firms and research labs are working on a concept that some have dubbed “hydrocarbon farming”, a “carbon capture and storage” (CC&S) process that uses solar energy to capture CO2 and water vapor from the atmosphere. The process offers the potential to create “net-zero” hydrocarbons that will allow consumers to continue to use internal combustion engines without creating any net addition to atmospheric CO2 levels. The technology may also make it possible to convert massive quantities of CO2 into paraffins: hydrocarbon waxes (the exact same stuff that’s in a candle) that may then be stored in underground caverns where they can safely store enormous quantities of CO2 without the need for pressurization. This article will provide a brief introduction to how hydrocarbon farming works, and identify several challenges that exist for implementing this technology on a wide scale.
The four stages of hydrocarbon production:
1…Commodity Capture: In this phase massive solar-powered dehumidifier systems or effluent from water treatment systems are used as a source of H20. CO2 capture technologies are used to secure raw materials from the atmoshphere.
2…Cracking: In this phase the harvested input commodities are separated into their chemical components. Water is broken down into Hydrogen and Oxygen through simple electrolysis. CO2 is broken down into carbon monoxide and Oxygen ions. These gases are now prepared for the next phase.
3…Fisher-tropsch reactor: In this phase Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon Monoxide are combined using a catalyst. The process converts those materials into hydrocarbons. Different chamber conditions and catalysts will yield different types of hydrocarbons. Systems would have to be designed with a “target blend” in mind, so that some FT reactors would be designed for producing gasoline, others would yield diesel fuel, and others would be designed to produce kerosene (which is used as a base for jet fuel), and others would create long-chain solid hydrocarbons (used in candle waxes, industrial paraffins and as bunker fuel for ocean-going ships).
4…Separation and thermal capture: This final phase takes the product from the F-T reactor and separates the output from hte F-T reactor into its constituent compounds for retail sale. The process involves heating the hydrocarbon output until it gasifies and then rises up in a ducted tower. As the gases rise up in the tower the temperature declines, and the gases will condense back into liquids, and be caught in the various ducts where they are shunted into storage containers to cool so they are ready for sale.
Key challenges to this technology are the cost of energy inputs. Before Hydrocarbon farming technology can become cost effective for widespread use there needs to be either, a huge improvement in the cost efficiency of solar panels, major advances in energy storage technologies, or a minor revolution in the use of solar fresnel and waste energy capture and reuse technologies. Also, this technology is geographically limited, and solar-thermal hydrocarbon farming would only be successful at locations that are between the tropics of cancer and capricorn, which means within 23 degrees of the equator. (If a conservative insists that means this technology isn’t viable, ask them if they think we should abandon the use of corn and wheat because you can’t grow them in Antarctica). The upside is this technology has the potential to create a huge economic boom for Central and South American countries, and the Saharan region of Africa.
Once the necessary technological advances are made a reality, then solar-thermal hydrocarbon farming will make it possible to keep our cars, address the problem of global warming, and render the current oil industry, including the environmentally destructive process of drilling for oil, as technologically obsolete.