Double Power for the Win: Producing Fuel with Captured Carbon Dioxide

• Joshua Lomahan
• Raine Fisher
• Michael Donnelly
• Rigoberto Mejia

Powering the modern world comes at a deadly price. Over 50% of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere can be traced back to electricity and fuel production. In 2018, it was reported that 37.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide was released into the air. To reduce emissions, engineers and researchers alike have developed technologies to utilize the carbon dioxide released by the burning of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, and other hydrocarbons. One of these many technologies is amine-based CO2 capture, which is a commercially available technology and serves as the basis of this eco-friendly project. Our goal is to capture carbon dioxide from flue gas emitted by a natural gas power plant located in California to produce methanol. Because it is difficult to store excess renewable energy generated from solar panels, a parallel process will be implemented that will consume this surplus. This parallel process is the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen will then be used to hydrogenate the carbon dioxide to produce methanol for sale, thus turning a potential liability into a revenue stream for struggling power producers.