A Wall of Fans Cleans Air

A Wall of Fans Cleans Air A Wall of Fans Cleans Air A Wall of Fans Cleans AirSometimes a new technology doesnt have to be super-complicated. For example, Carbon Engineering is designing air-capture plants that use walls of fans to strip carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby reducing levels of this greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.These plants will be scalable and can be built anywhere in the world to help reduce global concentrations of CO2, in such places as unpopulated areas like deserts. They would also be beneficial in urban areas for capturing CO2 released by cars and trucks.Only about 40 percent of our total emissions comes from large flue stacks, and the other 60 percent results from what we call diffuse and mobile sources that can be difficult to tackle at source, says Geoff Holmes, Carbon Engineerings business development manager. Capturing them back from the atmosphere may be a key way to help manage these diffuse emissions.Air-Stripping TechnologyCar bon Engineerings CO2-stripping technology integrates two processes an air contactor and a wiederbildung cycle. These two processes work together to enable continuous capture of CO2 from atmospheric air, with energy (and small amounts of make-up chemicals) as an input, and pure CO2 as an output.An illustration of CEs large-scale air contactor design. Image Carbon EngineeringFans draw atmospheric air into the air contactor, where it is combined with a CO2-absorbent capture solution. Once the CO2 in the air has been naturally absorbed by the solution and converted to a salt, it is sent to a regeneration cycle.The regeneration process involves several processing steps. Carbon dioxide is extracted while regenerating the original chemical solution for re-use in the contactor. The extracted CO2 is combined with all the CO2 from the systems energy use, and both are delivered as a high-pressure pipeline-quality product. This cycle is an innovation based on a 100-year-old industrial process d eveloped from existing technology. The CO2 can be stored or combined with hydrogen to make more fossil fuels.Carbon Engineering has built an air-capture demonstration plant in Squamish, British Columbia, that is in full operation, removing about one ton of CO2 from the air every day. The CO2 is processed through all the major subsystems that will be required to operate a future full-scale commercial plant.The air-capture plant is surprisingly quiet about 80 decibels only one m from the structure.Currently the demonstration plant is capturing the equivalent of combined emissions from about 14 or 15 vehicles. At full scale-up (perhaps 20,000 times the size of the demonstration plant) the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere will be roughly equivalent to capturing the emissions from 300,000 cars every year.We will take the data from the Squamish operation and use it to create a very precise, accurate final design for large-scale equipment, says Holmes. Carbon Engineering plans to build a first-of-its-kind commercial plant in 2017 or 2018 that will produce 10,000 barrels of synthetic fuel in a year.Clean-Tech FutureCaptured CO2 can be stored underground or used to make low-carbon fuels. There is a growing market for liquid fuels with low life-cycle carbon-intensity. California has a low-carbon fuel standard in effect, and similar initiatives are under way in other states, Canada, and Europe. These fuels have the same chemical make-up as fossil fuels, but are sourced from air and sunlight rather than from crude oil, says Holmes. Air capture plus fuel synthesis is potentially one of the few truly scalable ways to power transportation in a way thats carbon-neutral.Direct air capture is scalable and requires a relatively small footprint. Air-capture plants do essentially the same work as trees and other vegetation, but require for less space. Carbon Engineering hopes its technology will be part of a larger, coordinated effort in the clean-tech industry.No single technology or approach is enough to help avoid climate change. We need every option weve got, and more, says Holmes. Air capture has the potential to be a big help in cutting emissions that are difficult and costly to reduce at source, and that will add to the momentum thats building in other sectors of the clean-tech industry.Mark Crawford is an independent writer. For Further Discussion No single technology or approach is enough to help avoid climate change. We need every option weve got, and more.Geoff Holmes, Carbon Engineering

Jobs, Construction, Growing in New York City during August

Jobs, Construction, Growing in New York City during AugustJobs, Construction, Growing in New York City during AugustAt the start of each month we at Simply Hired like to take a step back, look at the jobs available on our site, and see what they can tell us about the US economy as a whole. We also look at a specific metro area that saw notable job growth over that month.This September, were highlighting hiring in the New York City area. Where the US saw job openings grow nearly 5% in August, New York City witnessed equally substantial growth at 6% over the course of the month. Although New York City often tops the list with the fruchtwein open jobs, the size of month-over-month job growth is notable.The top posting industries in New York City were financial services, retail, technology, healthcare, and manufacturinglittle surprise, with finance a key industry in NYC, as well as retail, technology, and healthcare continually ranked among the industries with the most post postings acro ss the US. But construction was the fastest posting industry in New York during August.New York City construction job postings grew more than 40% in August, compared to the national month-over-month growth rate of 18%. The next fastest growing industry was real estate, which saw 14% growth of job postings. In mid-August Crains New York Business reported residentialconstruction jumped 50% citywideaccording to a report released by the New York Building Congress. It expects $12.2 billion to be spent on residential construction in 2014, up from $6.8 billion just a year ago. This increase coincides with increases of total construction spend in New York during 2014.However, with these new increases,New York City is still behind other US metro areas in recovering to pre-crash levels of residential construction.Although spending on residential construction is up in New York, much of it is in luxury housing, which meansmore money spent but fewer units built.But this trend may not last. The N ew York City Mayors Office of Housing Recovery reported yesterday that the city has exceeded its goal of reimbursing homeowners and starting new home construction projects by Labor Day, in response to the Sandy super storm from nearly 2 years ago.This points to continued construction growth in the New York area for some time.Read the full Employment Outlook report here.

Stopping Power

Stopping Power Stopping Power Stopping Power Slamming on the brakes often comes with a good amount of cursing. The car that just cut you off, the jaywalking pedestrian, the exit you missed, all deserve a few foul words. For Alberto Boretti, University of Ballarat, Australia, the cursing is directed at the brakes themselves. The energy they use to slow his vehicle, or anyone elses, is gone, never to be recovereda source of endless frustration.Theres no good reason why it shouldnt be otherwise. A simple mechanical device that all the kids love in their toy cars is still not applied in production vehicles because of the lack of funding, says Boretti, who spent 20 years in the automotive industry before joining the faculty at the University of Ballarat as a professor of engineering.Kinetic Energy RecoveryIn 2009, the Formula One Team Association decided to allow this device for kids toys to be used in the speedier toys for bigger kids. The Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) came in m any varieties for the race cars, with the most promising storing the mechanical energy in a flywheel. The ordnungsprinzips gave drivers a bit more acceleration, cut a theoretical fifth of a second off their lap time, and saved some energy. KERS were dropped from Formula 1 during the 2010 season (due to development costs) but are back again this year.An example of a KERS device used in Formula 1 racing.So far, though, the technology has not made it onto a car for the rest of us. To help prove that such a move would be a good idea, Boretti ran a simulation of a car with a flywheel KERS. In a paper he published in the International Journal of Vehicle Design, he showed that fuel consumption would be reduced by 2533% for a typical sedan and 20% for a diesel-powered engine.With mechanical energy being stored as mechanical energy before its used again, 70% of the braking energy is recovered. Compare that to the regenerative braking system that a Prius currently uses Braking is converted to electrical energy then stored as chemical energy before making the reverse journey back to help power the car. After all the losses along the way, the Prius system recovers only 30% of braking power.A KERS device system.Borettis computational experiments were made with and without the continually variable transmission used with the Formula 1 flywheel system. In addition to this potential simplification, Borettis virtual design also used a vacuum pump, where other flywheels do their rotation in a sealed vacuum. In both cases, the idea was not to increase efficiency, but to cut costsin the hopes of luring future investors in research, as well as eventual customers. A stripped-down system like the one Boretti used would add only $400 to $500 to the price of a car. The extra cash could easily be recouped in fuel savings after just a year or so of driving.In the current economic climate, industries and governments arent looking to shell out the money needed to give drivers this choice. People are looking for a device that doesnt use carbon at alltheres a lot of pressure, but no money to develop a new idea. Its quite frustrating, says Boretti. The technology is already established. It just needs to be transformed to production.Michael Abrams is an independent writer.People are looking for a device that doesnt use carbon at all- theres a lot of pressure, but no money to develop a new idea.Alberto Boretti, professor of engineering, University of Ballarat, Australia