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Learning How To Roll Back Climate Change By Unlocking Negative Emissions

The U.S. Capitol Building Complex and thousands of other facilities - hospitals, etc., can join in removing Climate Change from the air while saving on their energy bills! 
NOTE: The plant 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.

2021: The Time Has Come To 'Green' The United States Capitol Complex
 https://www.aoc.gov/

What Congress can do to demonstrate to the World
The United States has emerged from a Time Of Environmental Darkness.

The U.S. Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C., could become the world's first national Capitol to show working/teaching examples of:
(1) NET-ZERO EMISSIONS UPGRADE and (2) 'REMOVE CLIMATE-CHANGING CO2 FROM THE AIR' Demonstration Facilities.

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The U.S. Capitol's Power Plant Can Demonstrate Either Or Both Steps For Reducing Climate Change
(NOTE: The following suggestions take advantage of the chemistry of wood.  Half the weight of wood is the element carbon the tree removed from the air to make its branches.)

       The Two Key Steps For Rolling Back Climate Change:        
 

Ending Climate Change is a Two-Step Endeavor.                                                 Unlocking Carbon Emission's Negative Impact on Air.

Step 1:  Net-Zero.  Stop adding additional Global Warming CO2 to the air.                Step 2:  Repairing the Air.  Suck back existing Global Warming CO2 from the air.      

(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 "Carbon Negative" phase.)

Getting our energy economy on track for zero emissions by adding wood 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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U.S. Capitol Building Complex (Campus) in Metropolitan Washington, D.C.      Where we can bury Climate Change CO2?      The Architect of the Capitol selected a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system to power the Capitol.
 

                           
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, wood) 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 gas's carbon was previously removed from the air by the wood pellets.
 

By powering the U.S. Capitol Building Complex with synthetic natural gas made from wood 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.
No other country's capitol could make that claim unless they did the same thing.
Several European countries are working to develop synthetic natural gas technology.
It shouldn't be too expensive to add synthetic natural gas made from wood 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, Step 1b:
Use Carbon Captured Fossil Fuels (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.

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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BioEnergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) Overview

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 natural 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.

The sketch below shows the same process 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.
 

Wood Burning, + Carbon-Capturing it's 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.
 

Step 2:
Use Carbon Captured Synthetic Natural Gas BioEnergy Fuels to Suck Existing Global Warming CO2 Out Of 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 Natural 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 advanced technology see: About the Allam Power Plant    

   

Doing It

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 wood-to-synthetic natural 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 wood pellet synthetic natural 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 Natural 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: Layout Images of the Capitol Complex power^● and coal storage facilities.

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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 Complex Climate Change Upgrade Project Presentation.
Thank you for checking it out.

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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 Them Speeds Up Decarbonization and Drives Down Cost. 
Electricity Transmission Lines, Not Dangerous, Costly CO2 Pipelines Is The Way To Go.

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 and connected to the electrical grid.

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The Race to suck Climate Change out of the air has begun!

Check out:  https://globalthermostat.com/    https://netpower.com/the-cycle/    https://carbonengineering.com/   
https://www.climeworks.com/    http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/    https://www.carbfix.com/ 
(Below is this website's offering.)
 

Also: 
Toshiba is working on a city-powering 300 megawatt Allam power plant for 2022
(The 300 megaWatt Toshiba power plant is 37 times larger than the 8 megaWatt Capitol Building Complex Power Plant and the world has 76,000 city-powering power plants.)
How a Full-Sized, Wood-Burning, Climate Change Removing, Power Plant Might look
Once every industrial country has Deep Decarbonized and built their Allam power plants, the current dangerous CO2 level in the air of 413 ppm (Nov, 2020) can be economically reduced to a much safer level of 350 ppm in about 14 years.

A "SKYSCRUBBER" Power Plant

This is how the newly developed 'Allam' technology - which was recently patented - could be implemented in a potentially far more efficient and cleaner BECCS facility.
Perhaps as efficient as today's standard non-emission-controlled 60% efficient 'CO2 Dirty' combined cycle natural gas plant.

        

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 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 wood-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 wood-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 wood 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]

The Recently Invented & Proven Allam Cycle Engine

NET Power’s Breakthrough Renewable Fuel/Fossil Fuel Platform Technology:   0%  Carbon & Particulates,   0%  NO_X & SO_X,   0%  Water Required

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By removing air's CO2 using BECCS and other technologies, we can re-set the world's thermostat to wherever we like. . . . . .
The CO2 in the air acts like a blanket - the more CO2, the thicker the blanket. Taking CO2 out of the air is like taking a blanket off your bed - you feel the change quickly.

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There Is A Proposal Becoming Popular For Cutting Climate Change CO2 Levels In Half From 420 ppm to 350 ppm

The proposal to suck the CO2 level back from today's 420 ppm to about 1980's 350 ppm:  Why 350? – MN350  https://350.org/
On paper, using the new Allam Cycle technology plus burning wood 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."
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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Discussion & Strategy Page.
Equipment Manufacturers and Engineering Companies for making and installing Synthetic Natural Gas Wood Pellet Methanators,  Add-on Retrofit Carbon Capture Modules. 
Repairing the Air - Removing Climate Change.
The Very Different Next Generation Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Micro Nuclear Reactors.
Repairing the Water With Next Generation Micro Nuclear Desalination And CO2 Extraction From Sea Water.
Deep Decarbonizing: Details for USA Implementations.
A World Powered By Wood Synthetic Natural Gas BECCS Power Plants.
Why Fossil Fuels Matter  The world has enough fossil fuel to power it at the current burn rate for 4 centuries and enough underground CO2 storage space for several times the fossil fuel's carbon. (Author needs a good reference for this statement.)
Allam Supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Power Plant.
Deep Underground CO2 Sequestration Vault Technologies.

Contractors and Equipment Manufacturers