What are the "crown jewels" of U.S. R&D doing against global warming?

The nation's federal laboratories got their start with nuclear bombs (well, really with agriculture in the late 1800s), spread (a little) to encompass nuclear energy -- and starting from studies of the effects of radiation on human body tissue, joined the biotech races. In fact, putting aside the nuclear weapons work (not an easy thing to do), the weight of federal research funding overall has been towards human health for decades now.

And despite the Bush Administration's lack of interest in science generally, the labs have kept an eye on real world trends and are well aware of the need to show some progress on technologies to combat global warming.

So the magazine about lab inventions of commercial interest, "Innovation," published by TVC, the tech transfer via venture capital affiliate of Sandia National Laboratories, devoted most of its February-March 2008 issue to the subject. I'll highlight a few over the next few posts.

Sandia: "Reversing combustion." The Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5 for blessedly short -- now do you have any doubt these guys are scientists?) can take apart the carbon-oxygen bond in carbon dioxide, turning it into carbon monoxide. They had started with a plan to free hydrogen from water for the so-called Hydrogen Economy, so now they have the raw ingredients for making a liquid petroleum-like fuel. Now I remember this much from chemistry classes: there are a couple of energy hills there. So Rich Diver and his colleagues will use solar energy.

Unfortunately, they think the process is 15-20 years away from commercialization. Maybe if they got a bit of funding, say private funding, it could go faster? Contact: Craig E. Tyner, manager, licensing and IP management, cetyner@sandia.gov, 505-844-3340.

Related articles

• Scientists Turn CO2 into Gasoline [via Zemanta]