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Gary Edwards

Startup turns carbon dioxide into fuels - 0 views

phys.org/...rtup-carbon-dioxide-fuels.html

syngas synfuels energy Clean-Energy carbon dioxide

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The research has received funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFSOR), the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy (DOE). The collaboration between Liquid Light and the University was supported by the DOE Small Business Innovation Research program and the AFOSR Small Business Technology Transfer program. Princeton's agreement with Liquid Light allowed the company to continue to collaborate with Bocarsly and his research team. Before long, new discoveries were emerging. "They started noticing interesting chemistry that we wouldn't have predicted," said Bocarsly.
  • The Princeton scientists did some additional studies, and made a surprising discovery: They could turn CO2, which contains only one carbon, into a compound with a carbon-carbon bond, which vastly increases the possibilities for creating commercial applications. This was radical because although the reaction is certainly possible, it is highly unlikely to happen because so many other competing reactions are occurring. "Everyone who electrochemically reduces CO2 today makes compounds with only one carbon," said Bocarsly. "Nobody makes things with carbon-carbon bonds." He paused. "But we can." "That was a very 'wow' moment," recalled Cole, "because we thought that our process could only make methanol. But now we were finding that we could make a variety of products, and that is what makes this technology commercially interesting." She said Liquid Light scientists can now make more than 20 different products from CO2.
  • One of the chemicals Liquid Light can make is isopropanol, commonly known as rubbing alcohol and an important industrial chemical. Another is butanol, which could be commercially important as a fuel. Liquid Light's technology offers the potential to make these chemicals at lower cost than today's methods, which involve starting with fossil fuels such as petroleum and natural gas.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Why does pyridinium work so well as a catalyst for the reaction? Based on its structure, the ring-shaped molecule is an unlikely catalyst for this reaction because it shuttles just one electron at a time. But to convert CO2 to methanol requires six electrons, and to make higher-carbon molecules takes even more electrons. Bocarsly and his team — in collaboration with Steven Bernasek, professor of chemistry — are doing studies to understand the steps in the chemical reaction, and they are making rapid progress. "There are clearly some intermediate products formed during the reaction that do not sit around for a long time and are not there in very high concentrations," said Bocarsly.
  • The Princeton team also is studying the factors that determine which products can be made from CO2. The researchers have found that very subtle changes in the electrode surface can lead to production of different chemicals. For example, CO2 plus a pyridinium catalyst and a platinum electrode make methanol. However, the same catalyst and a different electrode give a different product. The team published its findings on how the reaction is affected by catalyst concentration, temperature and pressure in the journal ChemSusChem last year.
  • Citing government statistics that the United States generates about 5.5 billion metric tons of CO2 per year, Teamey said it will not be hard to obtain the starting materials for this new industry. However, the CO2 needs to be relatively pure, a requirement that rules out gasoline tailpipes and coal-fired power plants. Instead, said Teamey, the CO2 could come from manufacturing facilities, such as fertilizer manufacturers and cement plants, which according to Teamey emit some 100 million tons of high-purity CO2 each year.
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Feb 14
     
    "Today, carbon dioxide (CO2) is a hot topic. Scientists around the globe are searching for ways to store, dispose of, or prevent the formation of the greenhouse gas, which is a major driver of global climate change. Liquid Light hopes to take this concept one step further and harness waste CO2 as a source of carbon to make industrial chemicals and fuels. The technology behind the process is simple: Take CO2 and mix it in a water-filled chamber with an electrode and a catalyst. The ensuing chemical reaction converts CO2 into a new molecule, methanol, which can be used as a fuel, an industrial solvent or a starting material for the manufacture of other chemicals. Liquid Light's founders include Bocarsly and his former graduate student Emily Cole, who earned her Ph.D. from Princeton in 2009. Cole helped revive efforts in Bocarsly's lab to study the conversion of CO2 into usable fuels, which led to the launch of Liquid Light and an ongoing collaboration that Bocarsly said has been extremely positive for his research team at the University. "We've made some discoveries that wouldn't have been made in a university setting, and this has really accelerated the research," Bocarsly said. "It is a very productive relationship." Back in the 1990s, a former Ph.D. student of Bocarsly's named Chao Lin conducted some of the earliest experiments on turning CO2 into methanol. He used palladium metal as the electrode and pyridinium, an inexpensive ring-shaped molecule, as the catalyst. By plugging the electrode into an electrical outlet, he could drive an electrochemical reaction that converted CO2 into methanol. As Bocarsly recalled, Lin was quite excited about his success. However, said Bocarsly, "We published that finding in 1994 and there was approximately zero interest in it." The work languished until 2005 when Cole, then a new graduate student, told Bocarsly she wanted to work on a clean-energy project. She took up the challenge of reproducing Lin's results, but this time
Gary Edwards

A Primer for Rich Donors Who Got Taken to the Cleaners by Republican Consultants | RedS... - 0 views

www.redstate.com/...ners-by-republican-consultants

Erick-Erickson Red-State Gravity-Program Catalyst-Program election-2012

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Nov 12
     
    Red State Erick Erickson explains the nuts and bolts of "data" and how to use it to run a successful political campaign.  "Data" is not quite what most of us think.  Erick breaks it down, explaining how "voter data" is determined, and then cast against an overlay of consumer data.  You gotta love his explanation of the critical and absolutely essential base line "dead dog" election number that must be established in each voting precinct. Great lesson in how campaign consultants can make or break an election.  Erick sites the "Gravity" program used by Conservative SuperPac groups like "Ending Spending", "FreedomWorks", "Heritage Action for America", "American Majority" and the "Madison Project".   Erick fully explains "Gravity", and mentions the Democrat program called "Catalyst".  Sadly, the big time consultants working for most of the SuperPacs and the Repubican Party did not use "Gravity".  Instead, they tried to kill it.  Erick explains all in this must read primer for political elections.  Awesome.
Paul Merrell

British Spies Allowed to Access U.S. Data Without a Warrant - NationalJournal.com - 0 views

www.nationaljournal.com/...ata-without-a-warrant-20141028

surveillance state NSA GCHQ intelligence-sharing must-read litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • British authorities are capable of tapping into bulk communications data collected by other countries' intelligence services—including the National Security Agency—without a warrant, according to secret government documents released Tuesday. The agreement between the NSA and Britain's spy agency, known as Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, potentially puts the Internet and phone data of Americans in the hands of another country without legal oversight when obtaining a warrant is "not technically feasible."   The data, once obtained, can be kept for up to two years, according to internal policies disclosed by the British government. GCHQ was forced to reveal that it can request and receive vast quantities of raw, unanalyzed data collected from foreign governments it partners with during legal proceedings in a closed court hearing in a case brought by various international human-rights organizations, including Privacy International, Liberty U.K., and Amnesty International. The suit challenges certain aspects of GCHQ's surveillance practices.
  • It is well known that the NSA and GCHQ closely share intelligence data with one another, as part of a long-standing surveillance partnership. Some details of the agencies' spy pact were exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year, including the existence of GCHQ's Tempora program, which taps into fiber-optic cables to scoop up online and telephone traffic across the Web for up to 30 days. But this is the first time the British government has disclosed that it does not require a warrant to access data collected and maintained by its American counterparts. The revelation appears to counter statements made by an oversight committee of the British Parliament in July of last year that "in each case where GCHQ sought information from the U.S., a warrant for interception, signed by a minister, was already in place."   It is unclear whether any restrictions on Britain's access to NSA surveillance data is imposed by the U.S. However, documents provided by Snowden to The Guardian last year reveal that the NSA shares raw intelligence data with Israel without removing information about U.S. citizens.
  • In a statement, the NSA said it works with a number of partner countries to further its "foreign intelligence mission." But it did not specify whether it was aware of or condoned Britain's apparent warrantless access of its data. "Whenever NSA shares intelligence information, we comply with all applicable rules, including rules designed to safeguard U.S. person information," the agency said. "NSA does not ask its foreign partners to undertake any intelligence activity that the U.S. government would be legally prohibited from undertaking itself." American privacy advocates quickly condemned any warrantless access of U.S. communications data by British authorities.   "The 'arrangement' disclosed today suggests that the two countries are circumventing even the very weak safeguards that have been put in place," Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement to National Journal. "It underscores both the inadequacy of existing oversight structures and the pressing need for [surveillance] reform."
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14
     
    Note that this came out in a court case; it is not a Snowden leak. 
Paul Merrell

Amid F-Bomb and Uproar, Dems Face Demands to Get Behind Single Payer | Common Dreams - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...emands-get-behind-single-payer

Auction-2018 California Dems single-payer-healthcare

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 May 17 - No Cached
  • California Democrats on Friday kicked off their three-day convention with a "raucous start" in Sacramento, where a wave of single-payer advocates demanded the party work towards a system that makes healthcare a human right. The gathering comes amid growing momentum nationwide for a single-payer, or Medicare-for-All, healthcare system, and as the Republican's widely scorned American Healthcare Act (AHCA) is days away from receiving its potentially problematic Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessment. In a evening rally and march that went from the capitol to the Sacramento Convention Center, a crowd of nurses and other healthcare activists urged support for SB562—the advancing Healthy California Act—which would create a universal health system for Californians, and could "send a message" and "be a catalyst for the nation."
  • Their message, however, was not warmly received by California Democratic Party chairman John Burton. In fact, he "had nothing but F-bombs and sarcasm for the protesters who disrupted the welcome reception of the California Democratic Convention Friday, calling for universal healthcare and chanting 'Hey hey, ho ho, corporate Dems have got to go,'" Bay Area News Group reported. Video captured and posted to Twitter by Politico reporter David Siders shows Burton telling them to "shut the fuck up or go outside."
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