Freezing CO2

[KG4CGC]

How long have we known that there is CO2 in natural gas and what if any, are the energy losses from it's removal?

Here is a convenient but confusing PDF to gloss over. (http://www.rivercityeng.com/pdfzip/CO2Freeze.pdf)

Here is another link discussing Application of Peng–Rabinson equation of state for CO2 freezing prediction of hydrocarbon mixtures at cryogenic conditions of gas plants. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TWR-4M27X5W-1&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1560839765&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d72570a6581868dad1461d91c9361fed&searchtype=a)

And another warning of the hazards of predicting freezing points. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TWR-4M27X5W-1&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1560839765&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d72570a6581868dad1461d91c9361fed&searchtype=a)

Talk of removal of CO2 from natural gas is towards what ends? Damn oil company commercial got me to asking this question.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1372294/exxonmobil_to_build_demonstration_plant_to_remove_ co2_from_natural/
Why?

When I was 10 years old, we had a speaker at the school come in to talk about making electricity but that burning NG had some ash that they filtered out of the burn process. The problem was that they didn't know what to do with it.
BTW, he was talking about nuclear energy vs coal etc. It was 1975 and there was a relatively new nuclear plant 30 miles away. And I guess some administrator thought it would be a good idea to expose us to the lecture.
Forward to the end of the story ...
I was the first one to tell the guy to freeze the gas.

[NQ6U]

There is no ash produced in burning natural gas. If a burner isn't set up right, you might get some soot but that's about it. I suspect the ash you're thinking about is fly ash, which is produced by coal-burning power plants and is now filtered out and sold as an additive for concrete. I've hauled hundreds--if not thousands--of tons of that stuff and it's nasty shit. It's a very fine powder with spherical granules that gets everywhere and is really slippery if you step in a spilled patch of it. It's also not a good thing to breathe.

[KG4CGC]

There is no ash produced in burning natural gas. If a burner isn't set up right, you might get some soot but that's about it. I suspect the ash you're thinking about is fly ash, which is produced by coal-burning power plants and is now filtered out and sold as an additive for concrete. I've hauled hundreds--if not thousands--of tons of that stuff and it's nasty shit. It's a very fine power with spherical granules that gets everywhere and is really slippery if you step in a spilled patch of it. It's also not a good thing to breathe.
I couldn't tell you. Sorry.

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

We get that mill scale and add it to the concrete in San Antonio.
As was pointed out, that chit gets into everything!

[kb2vxa]

Back to the original topic...

Mark Albers, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil, said: "This technology will assist in the development of additional gas resources to meet the world's growing demand for energy and facilitate the application of carbon capture and storage, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

What will assist development is drilling new gas wells. Note the last bit, CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas* and is essential for plants to photosynthesize the sugars essential for life. Natural BS is brown while the tree huggers' BS is green. Add it all up and you have BS oil companies are best noted for!
*Well, if you infuse a greenhouse with it the plants will grow prolifically. (;->)

Now if you want something that really gets into everything use a dry chemical fire extinguisher indoors. Maybe that's why fire suppression in a server room uses Halon (dibromotetrafluoroethane)?

[KG4CGC]

Back to the original topic...

Mark Albers, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil, said: "This technology will assist in the development of additional gas resources to meet the world's growing demand for energy and facilitate the application of carbon capture and storage, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

What will assist development is drilling new gas wells. Note the last bit, CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas* and is essential for plants to photosynthesize the sugars essential for life. Natural BS is brown while the tree huggers' BS is green. Add it all up and you have BS oil companies are best noted for!
*Well, if you infuse a greenhouse with it the plants will grow prolifically. (;->)

Now if you want something that really gets into everything use a dry chemical fire extinguisher indoors. Maybe that's why fire suppression in a server room uses Halon (dibromotetrafluoroethane)?
Too much CO2? Is that like too much H2O?

[NQ6U]

How long have we known that there is CO2 in natural gas and what if any, are the energy losses from it's removal?

You know, Charles, I think there's a fundamental flaw in your reasoning here. It's not that there's CO2 in natural gas, it's that when natural gas burns, carbon atoms it contains (it being a hydrocarbon) combine with oxygen atoms in the atmosphere to create CO2. The hydrogen atoms also combine with oxygen and create water. Now, there may be a way of extracting the carbon from natural gas somehow and then just burning the hydrogen, which would certainly solve the greenhouse gas problem. The question is: how much energy would it take to do that? Would there be a net gain in energy from burning the hydrogen afterwards? I have no idea.

[KG4CGC]

You know, Charles, I think there's a fundamental flaw in your reasoning here. It's not that there's CO2 in natural gas, it's that when natural gas burns, carbon atoms it contains (it being a hydrocarbon) combine with oxygen atoms in the atmosphere to create CO2. The hydrogen atoms also combine with oxygen and create water. Now, there may be a way of extracting the carbon from natural gas somehow and then just burning the hydrogen, which would certainly solve the greenhouse gas problem. The question is: how much energy would it take to do that? Would there be a net gain in energy from burning the hydrogen afterwards? I have no idea.
What reasoning? I know it may seem like I'm using reasoning but I'm trying figure out why this commercial was so important.

[ab1ga]

What reasoning? I know it may seem like I'm using reasoning but I'm trying figure out why this commercial was so important.

Natural gas is just the term for gas that comes out of the ground, and does not imply a specific mixture of hydrocarbons. Thus, composition can vary worldwide just as it does for petroleum.

Among the contaminants found in natural gas are CO2 and H2S. Since the CO2 does not burn, keeping it mixed in with the fuel gases doesn't add to the energy produced, and may even increase pollution due to lower flame temperature. H2S just stinks, and when it burns yields some of the components of acid rain.

Both CO2 and H2S have to be removed from the product before shipping it out, and the article describes a proposed method of doing this more cheaply and effectively than before. Once liquefied or frozen, the contaminants are easier to handle, and in the case of CO2, can be pumped more easily into sequestration, making the current crop of green freaks happy (I think they're banking trouble).

If you can reduce the costs of extracting product from the well, you can now better compete with existing sources on price. This makes it economically feasible to bring those sources online, increasing available market supply. (Actually, it just increases the consumption rate and current year revenue. Since the supply of oil is finite, the price -will- go up as the available supplies dry up, it's only a question of when.)

73,

[W3MIV]

Overall, an excellent post. Taken bit by bit, this exposition clarifies very well why we need to seek entirely new ways of generating energy and far, far better ideas about revising how we use the energy we produce. The asshats who gainsay global warming play at a dangerous game of dice. A truly objective cost-benefit analysis that takes into account all of the environmental and economical encumbrances, all of the unintended consequences of our centuries-long track of natural resources consumption would clearly reveal that the costs line is rising radically while the benefit track is dropping precipitously. The farther and faster we go in response to corporo-political alliances pressing ever harder for ever greater profit the more likely that we will pass a point of no return. What then?


Natural gas is just the term for gas that comes out of the ground, and does not imply a specific mixture of hydrocarbons. Thus, composition can vary worldwide just as it does for petroleum.

Among the contaminants found in natural gas are CO2 and H2S. Since the CO2 does not burn, keeping it mixed in with the fuel gases doesn't add to the energy produced, and may even increase pollution due to lower flame temperature. H2S just stinks, and when it burns yields some of the components of acid rain.

Both CO2 and H2S have to be removed from the product before shipping it out, and the article describes a proposed method of doing this more cheaply and effectively than before. Once liquefied or frozen, the contaminants are easier to handle, and in the case of CO2, can be pumped more easily into sequestration, making the current crop of green freaks happy (I think they're banking trouble).

If you can reduce the costs of extracting product from the well, you can now better compete with existing sources on price. This makes it economically feasible to bring those sources online, increasing available market supply. (Actually, it just increases the consumption rate and current year revenue. Since the supply of oil is finite, the price -will- go up as the available supplies dry up, it's only a question of when.)

73,

[n2ize]

You know, Charles, I think there's a fundamental flaw in your reasoning here. It's not that there's CO2 in natural gas, it's that when natural gas burns, carbon atoms it contains (it being a hydrocarbon) combine with oxygen atoms in the atmosphere to create CO2. The hydrogen atoms also combine with oxygen and create water. Now, there may be a way of extracting the carbon from natural gas somehow and then just burning the hydrogen, which would certainly solve the greenhouse gas problem. The question is: how much energy would it take to do that? Would there be a net gain in energy from burning the hydrogen afterwards? I have no idea.

The point being that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas. That's just a load of treehugger BS.