What should we do ?

Zero CO2 Cycle

Ideas for the UK

Positive ways forward to bring about change:

  • Set BP the task of efficient production of DME or other liquid fuel from atmospheric captured CO2 and hydrogen.
  • Set Rolls Royce, the task of helping to build the Molten Salt generators. (Their current Small Modular Reactor is a traditional pressurised water Nuclear Reactor.)
  • Set large chemical companies like Akzo Nobel (formerly ICI) and fertiliser manufacturers the task of working out how to modify their chemical plants to make use of a thermal feed from a Molten Salt Generator.
  • Set the F1 teams the task of designing efficient hybrid engines to use liquid fuels like DME to roll out to domestic car manufacturers. Diesel engines should run ok on DME, but that also needs confirming.
  • Set BAE and Rolls Royce the task of building/modifying aircraft engines to run on DME
  • Politically – change the rules/laws to allow deployment of MSTGs, many of which are stuck at the design stage because of Regulatory issues and government red-tape.
  • Politically – encourage atmospheric CO2 capture plants and CO2-free Hydrogen production plants to be set up co-located with the MSTGs to make direct use of their thermal output.
  • Politically – help financially. The technologies should be profitable in the very long term, but the start-up costs are huge and beyond the ability of most private enterprise to fund. If governments took a share in the risk, in return for a share in the long-term profits, then things would become more possible.
  • Change the spot-pricing mechanism for grid level electricity and/or subsidise Carbon-capture and CO2-free Hydrogen generation industries, so that it never makes sense to shutdown “surplus” renewable energy.
  • Install a sensible level of grid-level electricity storage

Ideas for the World

Positive ways forward to bring about change:

  • Set Oil companies throughout the world the task of efficient production of DME  or other liquid fuel from captured CO2 and hydrogen. Reward them financially for this. Exon Mobil already have a “Methane to Gasoline” process.
  • Encourage chemical companies and metal smelters throughout the world to work out how to design their plants to take heat supplied from MSTGs
  • For remote areas, where electricity grids are not reliable and most generation is still from fossil fuels, share the MSTG technology to replace the fossil fuel based central generation.
  • Help rural communities to set up community PV systems to provide them with carbon-free energy. Make sure these systems have  an appropriate level of local battery storage or hydrogen production to consume surplus power and ensure provision of electricity all the time.
  • Encourage, and legislate for, the replacement of all fossil fuels with DME or liquid fuels made from atmospheric carbon capture.
  • Make the extraction of Oil and coal financially unprofitable, by imposition of global tariffs.
  • Make the destruction of rain-forest financially crippling for those countries that do it, again by imposition of global tariffs on trade with any country which does this.
  • Politically – change the rules/laws to allow sharing of technology and deployment of MSTGs, throughout the globe.
  • Politically – help financially. The technologies should be profitable in the very long term, but the start-up costs are huge and beyond the ability of most private enterprise to fund. If governments took a share in the risk, in return for a share in the long-term profits, then things would become more possible.

At the moment the ideas which the media focus on, such as building insulation and putting in more efficient heating systems, though good in themselves, are barely scratching the surface of the problem. They are not addressing the main issue, that we are still producing CO2 all the time in our energy and electricity production. Replacing domestic methane boilers with electrical heat pumps is definitely a good idea, but only if all the electricity is produced in a completely CO2 free manner.