Global Heating Tehnologies

1. Carbon Dioxide to Methanol Conversion, "Supply and Demand Circle" for Methanol Fuel:

Global Heating Technologies AG (GHT) has successfully demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) to methanol, and continues scale-up. The organocatalysis chemistry results in conversion of CO2 gas to methanol under mild conditions: Laboratory measurements demonstrate an estimated 90% conversion of CO2 to methanol at room temperature, under normal atmospheric pressure within a period of 24 hours. Accelerating the conversion rate is an area of development of this process. Nevertheless, a protocol we used demonstrated up to 28% total volumetric utilization of reactants for synthesizing methanol. GHT is also investigating hydrogen promoted catalysis for this kind of process.

We are excited by contemplating site identification for plant scale demonstration of the system, and particularly because by methanol production the technology provides carbon mitigation without sequestration, as well a direct supply of fuel for our company's flameless catalytic heaters. Running on methanol, GHT's heaters produce no NOx, SOx, CO, or heavy metals exhaust. Their only organic byproduct is CO2, and taking this again to produce more methanol is a transition beyond carbon sequestration to carbon recycle.

2. Why GHT's technology business position is potent:

Company's diverse suite of intellectual property for flameless catalytic heaters using methanol, ethanol or hydrogen as fuel is dominant, with no known competitors.

GHT's products and systems are fully up/down scalable.

Company is thus uniquely capable of creating mass-scale demand for methanol as fuel for heating habitable spaces, clothing, foods, vehicles, and in numerous other applications such as industrial processes, examples below.

3. GHT's flameless catalytic methanol processes compared with combustion fuels.

GHT secured exclusive rights to a proprietary flameless oxidation catalyst operating in a temperature range under 400°C. This is well below the 1500°C temperature area conducive to NOx formation. NO2, one of the "greenhouse gases," is credited with a Radiative Forcing factor yielding an equivalent CO2 rating of the order of 10% (UNEP/GRID-Arendal).

Using methanol to fuel in GHT's heating process will also eliminate sulfur emissions, including the greenhouse gas sulfur hexafluoride.

By reforming to methanol the CO2 in off-gas from the operation of its heaters, GHT constructs a "supply and demand circle" for this fuel. Reforming 100% of the CO2 is not necessary for generating serious market impact.

GHT's heaters are also uniquely suited to integration with direct methanol electric fuel cells, increasing their efficiency by maintaining proper temperature at substantially lower cost, and utilizing the same fuel.

In addition to the above listed products, there will be industrial fuel demand for the methanol so produced, such as fully carbon neutral or carbon recycling electric generating stations. GHT heating technology is ideally suited to driving Carnot Cycle electric generators, which utilize relatively low temperature working fluids, and whose energy efficiency can greatly exceed that of fired steam cycle generators; thus requiring less energy in their operation, to yield additional carbon mitigation. Kalina and Rankine cycle generators are available today and ready for integration on any scale with GHT's heaters to drive them. They can achieve carbon neutrality or recycle while, unlike geothermal energy systems, require no expensive fixed infrastructure and can even be truck mounted.

Another industrial example—GE has recognized the utility of methanol as a gas turbine fuel: "Methanol is an attractive future fuel for stationary gas turbine engines. Tests have shown that, with minor system modifications, methanol is a readily fired and is fully feasible as a gas turbine fuel. Relative to natural gas and distillate, methanol can achieve an improved heat rate, higher power output due to the higher mass flow, and lower NOx emissions due to the lower flame temperature [Note: GHT's system is flameless, designable to yet lower temperature]. Since methanol contains no sulfur, there are no SO2 emissions. The clean burning characteristics of methanol are expected to lead to clean turbine components and lower maintenance than with distillate fuel." (GE White Paper)

How does methanol's inherent CO2 production rate compare? Taking 208 lb CO2 per million BTU as a median for low sulfur subbituminous coal (U.S. Energy Information Administration), with methanol producing 141 lb CO2 per million BTU; even without recycle methanol's environmental advantage is even clearer. Methanol is superior in this regard also to fuel oil at 164 lb CO2 per million BTU. However, methanol lags natural gas which comes in at 83% of methanol's CO2 production in the absence of CO2-to-methanol transformation. Still, the absence of NOx produced using methanol in GHT's heating process bridges the gap in significant degree, and the absence of other off-gas pollutants remains an additional advantage in favor of methanol.

GHT, Inc. is ready to begin marketing this carbon recycling process through scale-up, fostering the "supply and demand circle" for methanol and exceeding expectations matriculated in the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen treaty. GHT is looking to expand its roster of licensees interested in participating in a fundamental industrial shift.

4. Flameless Catalysis or Nuclear Energy?

Renewable Methanol:
(Carbon Recycling International)

Low Pollution
Emissions from methanol cars are low in reactive hydrocarbons (which form smog) and in toxic compounds.

Fire Safety
Methanol is much less flammable than gasoline and results in less severe fires when it does ignite.

High Performance
Methanol is a high-octane fuel that offers excellent acceleration and vehicle power.

Cost Effective
With economies of scale, Renewable Methanol could be produced, distributed, and sold to consumers at prices competitive with gasoline.

Renewable Fuel
Renewable Methanol meets European Union directives for renewable energy content in gasoline."

Naturally Biodegradable
(The American Methanol Institute)

Nuclear Energy:
Nuclear fueled electric power generating stations use a process designed by physicists, "perfected" by highly trained engineers, undergo extensive examinations before they can be licensed, and are built by carefully selected constructors with successful track records, and using highly regulated materials. They are expensive to build, in the area of $7,000/kWe per recent estimate by Moody's Corporation.

At this time, there are 432 operating nuclear power plants worldwide, with 65 more under construction (European Nuclear Society). Yet with all the science and engineering knowledge that goes into their design and construction, and all the training of the personnel, accidents do happen. When they have, the consequences range from purely economic, to acute deadliness and long-term greater incidence of cancers.

The 1979 accident at TMI-2 resulted in no injuries or adverse health effects at all. Some days after the accident there was an intentional release of pressure of radioactive gas, but not enough to cause an increase to background radiation levels. However, the economic cost of the loss of a $1 billion generation plant and its $293 million cleanup costs are staggering.

In the case of Chernobyl-4, operator error played a significant role in the 1986 accident. At the moment of the Chernobyl disaster, all the radioactive fuel disintegrated, and pressure from all of the excess steam (which normally would go to the turbines which had been shut down) broke all of the reactor internal pressure tubes, blew off the entire top shield of the reactor. The steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind; about 9.6 tons of nuclear fuel (Chernobyl Disaster Timeline).

Within months, there were 60 directly related deaths, and a total of 381,000 people were evacuated and resettled. A 4300 square km exclusion zone was established (World Nuclear Association).

Radioactive fallout from Chernobyl spread around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia; although the effect on background radiation in North America was apparently negligible. The financial cost of the loss of electric production, loss of contaminated agricultural products, the original construction cost, the cleanup and entombment of Chernobyl-4 was immense.

Fukushima Daiichi survived the massive March 11, 2011 earthquake in a credit to its engineers and constructors. The magnitude of the tsunami which then struck the plant, however, had not been foreseen. When the electric power grid collapsed, the Fukushima plants backup diesel generators started up to provide operating power to the multiple plants at this site, but the generators were rendered inoperable by water from the tsunami. Coolant loss in the reactors resulted, with the disastrous hydrogen explosions and other consequences we have read about in the recent press.

It is estimated that TEPCO, the operating utility, sustained a financial loss 9.5 billion euros (~$13B) (Economics News Paper), and that the estimated cost of cleanup will be $250 billion (News on Japan).