Thank you very much…

Nihat ESEN

Good luck with your entrepreneurial venture as a speaker. Keep me posted, feel free to email me at ideas4entrepreneur@gmail.com

“Q. What products does Calera produce?

A. The outputs from the Calera process are clean air, building materials (sand, aggregates, and/or supplementary cementitious products), fresh water, and excess carbonated water for re-injection. If the proprietary low voltage electrochemical process is required for additional alkalinity, hydrochloric acid will also be produced.

Q. What will happen to the hydrochloric acid?

A. The hydrochloric acid can be sold on the open market for industrial uses, used for oil well or brine production or be injected in deep geologic reservoirs”

As the lowest pH mentioned in table 1 of their patent

http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=CA&NR=2666147A1&KC=A1&FT=D&date=20100202&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_gb

is 3.115 this hydrochloric acid is likely to be be very dilute, 0.000767 moles per litre based on 3.115. The volume of acidic liquid to be disposed of is therefore 59,235 cubic metres per tonne of captured carbon dioxide.

http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=CA&NR=2666147A1&KC=A1&FT=D&date=20100202&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_gb

I have not put a cost on it, indeed I am not sure they have supplied enough information to do that. The concept of raising pH only slightly, thus requiring only a small voltage is interesting and had certainly not occurred to me.

I do not know because, at this point, Calera’s process is proprietary. Maybe it is smoke and mirrors and maybe it is not. If it is, they have fooled a fairly large number of scientists and investors across the country. If it’s not, this is exciting stuff with the potential to have a big impact on carbon emissions in certain areas.

As you see from my essay, this isn’t something that can be done just anywhere. There are certain conditions that must be met and “ingredients” that need to be present. But in those cases (which aren’t unreasonable or unlikely) it can have a big impact.

Beyond this, I really can not say. As I say in my essay, I have no affiliation with this group and I know nothing more than what I have read on their website and in some of the linked articles. But I will say that these are exactly the kinds of game-changing innovations that we should be nurturing and encouraging in our country. I hope they are legit because I find it very exciting.

If only I had the resources to make a small investment… LOL!

The only important step is adding alkalinity to seawater. If you increase the alkalinity of the ocean it will automatically absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to form mainly bicarbonate. There is no need for the all the rest of this process.

You do not disclose the “low-energy electrochemical process to add alkalinity” but current cheapest technology for creating alkalinity uses virtually the same process as the one Calera are trying to displace; high temperature limestone calcination to give quicklime (and carbon dioxide). Sodium chloride electrolysis to give sodium hydroxide (and chlorine)is an option but hardly low energy.

Calera must have something else in mind. As a scientist have you any ideas what it might be?