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The most powerful climate changing machines at our disposal are the world's electricity power plants.  Let's use power plants to our advantage.

Subjects:             0 Site Introduction: Repairing the Air   1 The Capitol Project: A Demonstration Facility   2  Repairing the Air   3 A Proposed Electric Air Repairing Machine   4 The Class VI CO2 Disposal Well   5  Repairing the Water   6 Nuclear Hydrogen Manufacture

The World Has 195 Countries That Need To Understand Rolling Back Climate Change By Using
Neutral and Negative Carbon Emissions. The U.S. Capitol Complex's Power Plant Could Demonstrate.

The U.S. Capitol Building Complex and perhaps 15,000 other organizations worldwide with large clusters of buildings striving to become net-zero producers of carbon:
 Hospitals, Colleges, Office and Industrial Complexes, Government and Military facilities etc., can join in removing Climate Change from the air while saving on their energy bills! 
NOTE: What is described on this page is an educational demonstration-sized plant. Having said that, it removes enough Climate Change from the air to be worth it's salt.  Utility-sized plants large enough to actually do the complete job of removing enough Climate Change from the air can be found here.

Now Is The Decisive Decade: Time To 'Green' The United States Capitol Complex
The  https://www.Architect of the Capitol.gov/  "Preserving the Historic Buildings that Inspire Our Nation" maintains displays relevant to United States history.  Check out their abilities.

The U.S. Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C., could become the world's first national Capitol to show working/teaching examples of:
(1) DECARBONIZATION and (2) 'REPAIRING the AIR' Demonstration Facilities.
NOTE: The following "Capitol Project" is merely a suggestion from a member of the general public.

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Site Groundwork That Would Support Such An Educational Demonstration Facility Has Already Been Completed

                       

U.S. Capitol Building Complex (Campus) in Metropolitan Washington, D.C.      The Architect of the Capitol selected a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system to power the Capitol.       Where we can bury Climate Change CO2?

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The U.S. Capitol's Power Plant Can Teach the World by Demonstrating Both Parts of Reversing Climate Change
(NOTE: The following suggestions take advantage of the chemistry of Biomass, a biofuel.  Half the weight of biomass is the Climate Changing element 'carbon' (CO2) which the growing tree previously removed from the air to make its branches.

Capturing carbon can end most of Climate Change. (Click)  



Part 1:  Decarbonization.  Stop 75% of adding additional Global Warming CO2 to the air by 2030.
Part 2:  Repairing the Air.  Suck 25% of existing Global Warming CO2 from the air by 2040.          

(Global warming doesn't stop if the CO2 blanket remains in place.    At full effort, much of the "Carbon Neutral" phase would be electrically realized (i.e. switching to electric cars, etc. ) as part of the "Decarbonization" phase.)

A tree is temporarily "carbon-negative" until it dies, rots, and returns the carbon stored in the tree to the air.

Getting our energy economy on track for zero emissions by adding Biomass pellet burning carbon-capturing equipment to the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) power plants of our building complexes.
Over 15,000 large building complexes worldwide - Colleges, Military Bases, Hospitals, Apartments, Office Complexes, Large Manufacturing, Airports, plus dozens of other types of building complexes - are major contributors to global Climate Change.
https://www.epa.gov/chp/what-chp 
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HOW?   Relatively Simple:   Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) press release pdf, Sept. 11, 2018:  Production of Renewable Gas from Waste Wood   (Check Out Their Important Links)

Adding a carbon-neutral fuel (in this case, woody pellets) to a pair of natural gas burning industrial combustion jet turbines equipped with heat capturing boilers to provide both heat and electricity to a building complex.
This creates a "Carbon-neutral" facility that does not add to Climate Change emissions because the synthetic biomass gas's carbon was previously removed from the air by the woody pellets.
 

By powering the U.S. Capitol Building Complex with synthetic biomass methane gas made from woody pellets, ( Biomass-To-Gas pdf ) the stack emissions would become "CO2-neutral" (i.e., Green) and would not add to the world's Climate Change burden. I choose densified woody pellets because they can be made from a wide variety of scrap woody fibers - from prime timber to scrub brush to fiber from switch grass AND they are already on the energy market in good quality and large volume from a number of vendors. 

No other country's capitol building complex could make that claim unless they also evolved their heat and power systems to the same Net-Zero CO2 emissions. Several European countries are working to develop synthetic biomass gas technology. It shouldn't be too expensive to add synthetic biomass gas made from woody pellets to any building complex that is already set up with combined heat and power like the U.S. Capitol.

This is not a trivial thing. Everyone pays attention to what the power centers of the world are advocating and demonstrating.

OR

Part 1b. DECARBONIZATION: By Capturing Carbon-positive Fossil Fuel Emissions 
Carbon Capturing Fossil Fuel Emissions (Coal, Oil, Natural Gas) to Stop Making More Global Warming CO2.

                

Above: Fossil-Fuel Carbon Capture.  This equipment represents the best Carbon Capture Technology the world will be able to implement for perhaps the next 10 years. 

Worldwide, perhaps 15,000 thousand large building complexes such as colleges and universities, hospitals, factories, airport terminals, military bases, industrial and business centers have central power plants like the U.S. Capitol Building Complex.  Combined, these thousands of large building complexes are major contributors to global Climate Change and many could be modified to "Repair the Air" like the U.S. Capitol Building Complex.

Large companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon are beginning to make commitments to become "Carbon-Neutral" by some time in the near future such as 2030 or 2040.  No reason the Government shouldn't clean up it's operations.

IBM Says Its Carbon Capture Research Will Help Meet 2030 Net-Zero Goal.  IBM is One of 20 Companies Joining The Climate Pledge, a Commitment to Reduce Carbon Emissions Started by Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

This is the direction the troops are marching.  https://sustainability.google/commitments/?utm_source=googlehpfooter&utm_medium=housepromos&utm_campaign=bottom-footer&utm_content= 

The time has come for the Capitol Building Complex, which began marching in this direction in 2007, resumed leading the world.

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Part 2. REPAIRING the AIR by Making Carbon Emissions NEGATIVE
Using Carbon Captured Synthetic Biomass Gas BioEnergy Fuels to Suck Existing Global Warming CO2 Out Of The Air

Biomass Burning, + then Carbon-Capturing the Biomass' CO2, the U.S. Capitol Building Complex in Washington, D.C., could become the
world's first Capitol to REMOVE CLIMATE-CHANGING CO2 FROM THE AIR.
 

         
Climate Changing CO2 is removed from the air by trees to make their wood, which is pelletized, then gasified, then methanated to to become Synthetic Biomass Methane Gas (SNG).  
The wood's energy heats, cools, and provides electricity to the U.S. Capitol's Buildings.   The fire's CO2 is then extracted from the exhaust, liquefied, and shipped in 92 ton liquefied CO2 railroad tank cars to a remote underground storage strata. 
There, the liquid CO2 is mixed with "CarbFix" to cause the liquid to eventually harden into a solid limestone, then injected several thousand feet down into a vast sponge-like underground strata that will act as a permanent storage vault.

Burning Wood or other Biomass can be used to remove Climate Changing CO2 from the air.  Coal, Oil, Gas, Nuclear, Hydro, Wind, Solar, don't capture carbon from the air like plants so they won't work.
   A massive tree-farming region and new tree harvesting technology will have to be established in the U.S. Southeast & Pacific Northwest - both the U.S. and Canada - to both control the coming much larger Climate Change-stoked wildfires and to provide the wood necessary to power the Allam Cycle power plants.  Similar regions will have to be established in Northern Europe and Siberia.

HOW?  An expert explains:   Carbon Capture Overview  by Mahin Rameshni, P.E., WorleyParsons.  Excellent 16 page pdf introduction to Post Combustion Carbon Capture Technology.

For more modern advanced CO2 capture technology see: About the Allam Power Plant    

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Doing It:  Using the Capitol Building Complex's Power Plant as a
Living 24/7 Demonstration of How To Roll Back Climate Change

An image similar to the above image first appeared on this website over 10 years ago when Nancy Pelosi was on her first Tour Of Duty (2007 to 2011) as speaker of the House.  As head of the House, Nancy Pelosi is involved with physical plant projects like the above diagram. At the time, a couple of gas-fired Combined Heat and Power units were being proposed to replace the coal boilers in the Capital Complex Boiler House and I was suggesting on this website we add a carbon capture unit to make the U.S. Capitol the world's first carbon-capture Capitol.

As it turned out, coal was replaced with much cleaner Combined Heat and Power gas turbines in 2018 but no biomass-to-synthetic biomass gas and no gas turbine post combustion carbon capture modules were included in the upgrade project.

What is being suggested here and now is a good example of a current state-of-the-art "Post-combustion Carbon Capture" retrofit application that could be a small Dutch allothermal woody pellet synthetic biomass gas BECCS powered turbine unit such as they have been developing in Europe.  https://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2018_107_production-of-renewable-gas-from-waste-wood.php
At 90% carbon capture for 130% capital, fuel and power output loss, that amount of parasitic burden is about as good as can be expected for non-Allam carbon capture technology BUT it can be built using developed technology and installed anywhere and used on existing power plants and hospital heating plant equipment to clean up environmentally dirty sites.
 

(Below) Orientation Photographs - Up is North.

OVERVIEW OF SOUTH END OF CAPITOL BUILDING COMPLEX
Power Plant (top), Coal Yard (bottom) as of 7-11-2020. 
(The "Combined Heat and Power" (CHP) turbine upgrade depicted in the sketches above have been built and are on-line.)

 

             

(Left & Center image) Yellow Pushpin: Capitol Complex Power House, Red Dot: Coal Yard, (shown enlarged in Right image).   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Power_Plant  (Click to enlarge.)
There might be sufficient space for the add-on retrofit carbon capture module along the power plant's southern Virginia Ave., SE. street border (Left).
The existing coal railroad spur and coal pile area on the South side of the freeway (Right) could provide space for the Synthetic Biomass Gas Generator facility.
Adding these facilities would make the the U.S. Capitol Complex the world's first national Capitol to REMOVE Climate-changing CO2 FROM the air.

Above: (left) Layout Images of the Capitol Complex power plant property (yellow pushpin) and coal storage facilities^● (red dot) south side of freeway. (right)

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Comments

NOTE: Your author, a long-retired registered Control System Engineer, has had no contact with the Architect of the Capitol or any of their staff.  All information presented above has come from open postings on the Internet or Press,
including GAO "Statement of Terrell G. Dorn, Director Physical Infrastructure Issues: ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL; Progress in Improving Energy Efficiency and Options for Decreasing Greenhouse Gas Emissions", June 18, 2008.

"The Architect of the Capitol (AOC) is the federal agency responsible for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of the United States Capitol Complex, and also the head of that agency. The Architect of the Capitol is in the legislative branch and is accountable to the United States Congress and the Supreme Court.

President Trump nominated Brett Blanton as architect of the Capitol on December 9, 2019. On December 19, 2019, the United States Senate confirmed his nomination by voice vote. He was sworn in on January 16, 2020. Blanton replaced acting architect of the Capitol Thomas J. Carroll, who replaced former acting architect of the Capitol Christine A. Merdon. Prior to that, Stephen T. Ayers served as acting architect of the Capitol since February 2007, and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on May 12, 2010, becoming the 11th architect of the Capitol. He retired on November 23, 2018. "

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architect_of_the_Capitol 

  

End of the U.S. Capitol Climate Change Demonstration Project Presentation.
Thank you for checking it out.

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Related Background Information Below
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What is BECCS?

"BECCS is a geo-engineering technique to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Plants such as trees or agricultural crops naturally remove carbon dioxide, then are burnt to produce energy and the emissions are captured and stored in geological formations underground.

The theory is this can be considered negative emissions if the plant growth is additional to existing or foreseen plant growth as the carbon dioxide removed is also therefore additional. As the carbon dioxide from biomass combustion is not released, but captured and stored, the extra plant growth removes emissions already in the atmosphere. It is touted as a win-win which provides an alternative for fossil fuel energy while removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

In practice, there are no operational BECCS facilities claiming to produce substantial negative emissions anywhere in the world, and many scientists have highlighted feasibility constraints that would make it unlikely to ever work, at least not on the scale foreseen." - fern, September, 2018.

Using BioEnergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) for Rolling Back Climate Change

BECCS is one of the few technologies that is capable of removing past CO2 emissions remaining in the atmosphere. As this enhances the 'when' (i.e., temporal) flexibility during the design of mitigation scenarios considerably, BECCS plays a prominent role in many low-stabilization pathways. Potential risks associated with BECCS technologies are related to those associated with the upstream provision of the used biomass as well as those originating from the capture, transport and long-term underground storage of CO2 that would be emitted otherwise. (This was written before CarbFix came on the market.) - Energy Systems, Chapter 7, 7.5.5, p533.

How BECCS works: Climate Changing CO2 is removed from the air by trees. The trees are processed into synthetic biomass gas (SNG). Ideally, the SNG would be used to power the new city-sized Allam Cycle electricity generator.
The Allam Cycle engine site adds a chemical called CarbFix to it's liquid CO2 emission that will slowly turn the CO2 into solid limestone, then the CO2 is pumped into a porous underground CO2 disposal vault forever.
If this is done on a big enough scale with many of the world's power plants, all the Climate Changing CO2 in the air will eventually be removed from the air and stored underground forever, ending Climate Change forever.
The world has enough porous underground storage strata to store more than 4 centuries of CarbFix CO2 being produced at today's burn rate.

Currently, this process is being done with less efficient old CO2 technology patented in 1930. This CO2 capture technology is still considered state-of-the-market and can be purchased from multiple vendors today.

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About Captured Carbon's Underground CO2 Storage Vault Locations 
U.S. and Global Deep Underground BECCS Negative CO2 Storage Zones. 

Locating Clean Power Plants Directly Over CO2 DISPOSAL WELLS Speeds Up Decarbonization and Drives Down Cost. 
Electricity Transmission Lines, Not Long-to-Build, Costly, and Dangerous CO2 Pipelines Is The Way To Quickly Decarbonize and Repair the Air.

The United States' Carbon Capture and Storage Situation:
"The United States has the technological potential to offset roughly only a decade’s worth of its current CO2 emissions through biological sequestration (i.e., planting trees, etc.,) but a few hundred years’ worth of emissions through carbon dioxide capture and sequestration." - from Congressional Budget Office "The Potential for Carbon Sequestration in the United States, 2007" - Summary, page 2.

There is about 4 centuries of fossil fuel at the current burn rate on Planet Earth. It is estimated there is underground storage space for several times Planet Earth's carbon dioxide.
Far more than is needed to bury all of Climate Change's CO2.  

See CarbFix: CO2 Locked in the ground forever. Watch:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zDZmIDbDO0   (Skip the ad someone inserted in front of the video.)
If water is added to the liquid CO2 as it is pumped into the ground, the CO2 will turn into limestone [carbonate] after a few years. This locks the CO2 underground forever.

               
Maps Showing various UNDERGROUND CARBON CAPTURE STORAGE STRATA LOCATIONS 
See:  "Geospatial analysis of near-term potential for carbon-negative bioenergy in the United States" by Ejeong Baik, et al.  https://www.pnas.org/content/115/13/3290  (pdf)
Locations without carbon disposal will have to rely on renewables - wind, solar - for their electricity.

 

 

 

 

Bottom Line: BECCS Power Plants for rolling back Climate Change can be located over CO2 storage zones almost anywhere in the world and connected to electrical grids.

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There Is A Proposal Becoming Popular For
Reducing Climate Change's CO2 Increase By Half From 420 ppm to 350 ppm

The proposal is to suck the CO2 level back from today's 420 ppm to about 1990's 350 ppm:  Why 350? – MN350  https://350.org/

On paper, using the new Allam Cycle technology plus burning Biomass for its CO2 and a very large amount of money, it may be possible to achieve the proposed 420 ppm to 350 ppm CO2 reduction task in a surprisingly short time³.

"As of 2018, CO2 constitutes about 0.041% by volume of the atmosphere, (equal to 410 ppm) which corresponds to approximately 3210 gigatonnes of CO2, containing approximately 875 gigatonnes of carbon."

BACK TO 350 ppm? Since the beginning, the concentration of global warming CO2 gas in the air has been 280 parts per million (ppm).  Burning coal, oil, and gas caused CO2 in the air to rise to about 413 ppm.  Experts agree that 350 ppm is the highest CO2 should ever be.
By ending all CO2 emissions (i.e., going to net-zero) immediately, plus removing 548 billion tons of old, existing CO2 from the air long-term, we can reduce the air's CO2 level from about 413 ppm to 350 ppm¹. (Most climate scientists agree.)
The world generates 23 teraWatt-hours (12 zeros, folks) of electricity every year. It would take 76,666 Biomass-burning 300 megaWatt Toshiba Allam Cycle power plants at 330 days/yr to make that much power (~ same number of power plants as now).
 
³One of the above Biomass-burning Toshiba plants could remove 772,200² tons of CO2 from the air per year. So: 76,666 plants x 772,200 tons CO2 per plant per year ~ 59 billion tons per year.  548 billion tons / 59 billion tons per year = 9.2 years!
Guesstimate: About half the weight of Biomass is recoverable CO2 using an allothermal gasifier and a methanator.  An average tree might weigh 4 tons.  NASA has estimated the world has about 3 trillion trees.  A trillion is a thousand billion.

¹ "Almost all scientists, climate experts, and governments agree that 350 ppm is the “safe” maximum level of carbon dioxide."  Why 350? – MN350

² "Process and Carbon Footprint Analyses of the Allam Cycle Power Plant Integrated with an Air Separation Unit", Clean Technology, 2019, 1, 325-340; doi:10.3390/cleantechnol1010022   www.mdpi.com/journal/cleantechnol         [2.804.35]

From:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere 

So, - - - 3210 gigatonnes CO2/410 ppm = 7.83 gigatonnes CO2 per ppm - - - (Each part per million (ppm) of CO2 weighs 7.83 gigatons.) Planet Earth has had air with about 280 ppm of CO2 for more than 10,000 years - the end of the last Ice Age. This means 280 * 7.83 gigatons per ppm or 2192 gigatonnes of CO2 is Planet Earth's natural CO2 baseline. Now, we have 410 ppm or 3210 gigatonnes of CO2 and want to reduce the CO2 concentration back down to 350 ppm.
(The 2018 data above is two years old and the current ppm is close to 420.) So, to remove: 420 ppm CO2 - 350 ppm CO2 = 70 ppm of CO2.   70 ppm * 7.83 gigatonnes CO2 per ppm = 548 gigatons of CO2  [this item is only half-finished at this moment]

Keep in mind we are only talking about CO2 in air and ignoring CO2 that has been absorbed by seawater, land, plants, rocks, etc. CO2 in air ends up being only about 44% of the CO2 we initially emit.

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Repairing the Air on a Global Scale

The Race to Suck Climate Change Back Out of the Air has Begun!

Check out the web sites of companies working on it to learn what they are trying:
  https://globalthermostat.com/       https://netpower.com/the-cycle/        https://www.carbfix.com/        https://www.1pointfive.com/       
           https://www.climeworks.com/        https://carbonengineering.com/        http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/

Below is this website's offering.

The most powerful climate changing machines at our disposal are the world's large coal electricity power plants.  Recently, several new "Clean" power plants have entered the market.
Obtaining most of our future "clean" building heat, industrial and mechanical energy from electricity (for cars, trains, AC, etc.) will more than double the amount of electricity that must be generated.
Building 150,000 new environmentally "clean" power plants of two different types - one type nuclear, (good luck IPCC), one type biomass - over the next 20 years should be our key goal.
Building these two new zero-emissions power plants adjacent to each existing running-condition coal power plant would make best use of older existing installed resources to grow our electricity supply.

1. About 1/2 of the new electricity generation should come from sources like NuScale ( https://www.nuscalepower.com/ ) modular small nuclear-powered reactors (SMR) for Desalination and to prevent making additional new carbon emissions while making unlimited amounts of Hydrogen for clean fuel from water and electricity for air conditioning. NuScale's willingness to switch mid-stream from conventional fuel rods to Lightbridge ( https://www.ltbridge.com/ ) fuel rods demonstrates an unusual willingness to improve safety and economics on the fly.

2. About 1/2 of the new electricity generation should come from BioEnergy-powered BECCS Allam Cycle ( https://netpower.com/technology/ ) carbon-negative SkyScrubbers to roll back Climate Change to repair the air.

The first commercial NuScale power plant is nearing the end of it's construction cycle near Idaho National Laboratories, Idaho. It is intended to power customers in the U.S. Northwest. It's fast transient response makes it a good non-combustion compliment to the Northwest's many large wind farms. A full-sized NuScale 924 megaWatt(e) power plant is a cluster of 12 simple, small, water-cooled independent nuclear reactor modules but an affordable plant for small countries could be a two-77 megaWatt(e) module starter plant.

The first simple, small water-cooled nuclear reactor was used to power nuclear submarines in the mid-fifties. Several hundred in this size class have been built in dozens of countries since then in academic, civilian, and military projects. This simple water-cooled technology has been under constant refinement for 70 years. No other nuclear reactor type can make that claim.

The natural gas fueled Allam Cycle supercritical CO2 working fluid combustion engine was first started in a small Texas pilot plant in May, 2018 and has been running in various operational test regimes since then. Four more pilot-sized plants were announced in January, 2021 to be built in other countries. They would make excellent teaching/training facilities not unlike the Texas plant. Some, but not much, conventional combustion engine knowledge can be used to understand how an Allam Cycle engine functions so there is a steep learning curve. Able to run without producing CO2 emissions on fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, and lignite the Allam engine is considered to be the first successful commercial size combustion engine of the ENVIRONMENTAL ERA.

Others have come up with other Environmental Era engines but the Allam engine seems to have an excellent head start. Toshiba will begin producing a full-size 300 megaWatt(e) Allam Cycle power plant late 2021-2022.

The shutting down of good-running nuclear reactors with decades of life still on their licenses is criminal environmental foolishness.  Are you listening Germany?

The keys to success in an emergency build-out like this is to:
1. Not do anything unnecessary,
2, Keep the size small,
3, Keep Engineering and Construction standardized, with components assembly line built in multiple regional factories - like cars today, like ships and airplanes were built in World War II.

The Best Way To Get A "Running Start" Is To Build Next To Existing Coal Power Plants
 

 

Notice how many cities Planet Earth has?  There are usually several power plants near every large city. (Click)

 

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