The concentrations of the atmospheric greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor - are undergoing net increases even though the concentration of water vapor is somewhat occasionally tempered as a result of rainfalls. Moreover, any interactivity-impact such as generic atmospheric reactions between the constituents gases, and photolytic reactions between the same gases that may be ignited by lightening, also would not suffer mitigation unless the concentrations of these gases are reduced significantly. In effect, the net impact of the greenhouse gases effect is fully felt by planet Earth.

In recognition of this situation, engineering and natural scientists have been working at developing technologies for mitigating the effect of greenhouse gases, GHG. Evolving from these development efforts are technologies that aptly are GHG Emission Reduction Technologies. These provide immediate solution to the problem of GHG emission by adapting current energy generation technologies to emit less GHG than otherwise.

GHG Emission Reduction Technologies

Almost all the technologies aimed at reducing GHG emission have focused on reducing the emission of carbon dioxide, while with respect to methane there is the global push by the World Bodies to stop gas flaring all over the world.

Two technologies  have been developed specifically to accomplish the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emission. One technology approaches the carbon dioxide emission by undertaking carbon dioxide sequestration. The other technology approaches the carbon dioxide emission reduction by chemical reaction.

A third option however, that has not received much attention, is a throw back from the 1950s chemical operations of Monsanto, the Monsanto GHG Reduction Technology, as dubbed from hereon.

The carbon dioxide sequestration technology aims to store the gas under conditions of such high pressure in which the gas exists in a liquefied state and therefore not get discharged into the atmosphere; and with respect to the implementation of this technology, several but all related, approaches have been developed, and each one accomplishes the objective of storing the carbon dioxide gas under conditions of such high pressure that the gas exists in a liquefied state.

Given the object of the approach as liquefaction of combustion effluent stream carbon dioxide, the efforts are focused first on the development of systems for capturing CO2 from coal-fired power plants. CO₂ capture is the separation of CO₂ from emissions sources or the atmosphere and the recovery of a concentrated stream of CO2 that is amenable to sequestration or conversion. In this regards, several different techniques involving the adoption of chemical sorbents, physical sorbents, membranes, hydrates,  aqueous amines and other approaches, are being researched on an on-going basis.

However, at the moment, aqueous amines are the state-of-the-art technology for CO2 capture for PC power plants. The technology however is still proprietary but an off-cuff consideration should suggest the process equipment to include the following

Packed Bed Separator
Equilibrium Flash Still

together with other ancillary equipment as may be determined through research. In any event, the amine solution enables large volume absorption of carbon dioxide which is then desorbed from the amine solution when pumped into the Equilibrium Flash Still. The carbon dioxide gas from the Equilibrium Still is then compressed to pipeline pressure (1,200–2,000 Ibs/si (psi))  The process can then be set up as a continuous operation.

The chemical reaction driven reduction of carbon dioxide reduction entails the deployment of  GreenFuels Technologies bioreactor(s) over the discharge sections of the flue gas of the current technologies. The bioreactors are rows of fat, clear plastic tubes, each with green algae support inserted inside. With appropriate deployment or retrofitting of the bioreactors to the effluent stream flue gas, the flue gases flows through the bioreactors, the CO₂ is consumed by the algae as the flue gas bubbles through the tube and the algae spacing, and oxygen is released by the algae. The relatively cleaner flue gas bubbles skyward, but with 40% less CO₂ and 86% less nitrous oxide.

The algae grow quickly from the generous doses of CO₂-laden emissions, fed to them, and are set to be harvested daily; the harvest is used as feed to an algal biodiesel process to produce biodiesel, a clear, slightly yellowish liquid. The dried green flakes residue of the biodiesel process is proposed to be further processed to create ethanol, using GHG Emission Abatement Technologies.

The third and least exposed method is even more beneficial: In the 1950s Monsanto Corporation had this technology for capturing the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and used it as feed for producing Aspirin. Obviously this process provides an immediate win-win situation for everybody: For one thing, the GHG emission is reduced, there is no immediate energy hardship for businesses, and the pharmaceutical industry gets to produce aspirins and possibly other intermediary chemicals for other medications: The greenhouse gases from the current energy production sources are captured directly from the discharge and used as feed for pharmaceuticals chemicals. In such method should possibly lead to lower cost medications, that can be made available for the third world countries.

Clearly this is an excellent development because while not taking away the steam of adopting an alternative energy, the current form of energy production can be sustained, as deliberation goes on and rather judicious decisions are being made about the most efficacious energy source to be adopted in replacement of the fossil fuel energy sources, and which ironically provides immediate financial benefits as well.

The application of the Monsanto GHG Reduction Technology - as is dubbed hereon forward - should also not have too many impedances, given that the intellectual property rights associated with it, has most probably expired, and as such modification of the concept upon purchase from Monsanto should be possible. 

Impact of Reduction Technologies

Each approach however has it attendant problems that needs addressing as well.

Regarding carbon dioxide sequestration, analysis of CO2 capture and compression using amines raises the cost of electricity from a newly-built supercritical PC power plant by 84 percent, from 4.9 cents/kWh to 9.0 cents/kWh. Furthermore, this post-combustion capture of CO2 poses the development of a challenging application because:

• The low pressure and dilute concentration of the carbon dioxide necessitates treating an actual large volume of gas.
• Impurities in the flue gas tend to reduce the effectiveness of the CO2 adsorbing processes
• Direct compressing of captured CO2 from atmospheric pressure to pipeline pressure (1,200–2,000 Ibs/si (psi)) represents a large parasitic load.

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