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`Black swan technology' Still, NET Power has attracted some high - profile environmental advocates, as well as prestigious industrial partners. Tim Profeta, director of Duke University's Il chop la Ilirh titute of IErMir irhirneintal P Illi y lrl)o utoin , is chairman of 8 Rivers Capital's board of advisers. He acknowledges the tradeoffs but said NET Power is a "worthy bargain." "It is truly a black swan technology that could change the game in power generation," Profeta said. "The company expects it will become the preferred technology for power generation." Another supporter is John Thompson, the Fossil Transition Project director at the Boston -based CIIeairh Xir ..II'asI I:: it e. "If this technology works, it creates an entirely new pathway to economically cut CO2 at a massive scale in a very short period of time," Thompson said. "Even if half of what they claim pans out, it's a big deal. If 25 percent of what they claim pans out, it's still potentially important." The technology in question is called the , I1airn Cy lle, in which natural gas is not burned with air, but with a blend of pure oxygen and carbon dioxide. In this combustion process, the natural gas, oxygen and carbon dioxide burn at a pressure more than 10 times the pressure used in a conventional gas turbine. This thermodynamic feat, which will be tested under real -life conditions next year in La Porte, Texas, approximates a rocket engine and has never been attempted by the power industry. Unlike a disposable rocket booster, however, the NET Power combustor would have to operate reliably for the duration of a power plant's expected Iifespan, anywhere from 25 to 50 years. "The technical challenge here lies in designing durable hardware capable of thousands of hours of continuous operation and efficient combustion over the range of conditions required in a power plant," according to a paper presented at the June 2015 proceedings of the Airneir9icain 115o6e y of �:�liineeir ..Il'uirlb Expo in Montreal, Canada. Il�al�� it °n li�� II I�::: it °ha. The ASME paper's presenters are researchers at the Toshiba Corp., one of NET Power's corporate partners in the zero - emissions venture. Another partner is Chicago -based IExe oirh G. oirp iratoirh, the nation's largest operator of nuclear power plants. Also involved is the Ch cag III3ir9 :Ige & Ilir irh Co,, a construction conglomerate commonly known as CB &I, which inherited its share of the NET Power project in 2013 when it acquired one of the original partners, the Shaw Group, a global engineering and construction firm. That makes NET Power a virtual company without a staff of its own, drawing on outside experts and business partners for its intellectual property and R &D. Disposing of the CO2 A logistical challenge for NET Power will be the disposal of carbon dioxide. NET Power says utilities that build its power plants could sell the CO2 they capture to energy companies for dill expo I iratoirh. The other option is duirnpliir g lit uirhdeirgir air d in regions with adequate geological formations for permanent deep injection. Currently, injecting CO2 underground — called equestiratoirh — has been tried in pilot projects but remains too costly to be adopted as an industry practice. That's because capturing and compressing carbon dioxide at a conventional power plant would require multimillion - dollar retrofits. The NET Power plant skips the retrofit stage because it is designed and built to compress and capture the gas. The other option, advain ed dill irecoveiry, already represents rheaidy 3 Ipeir eint of U.S. onshore oil production. But this carbon dioxide is not sourced from the utility industry. Rather, the energy industry obtains its CO2 from a handful of natural geologic domes where the gas has naturally accumulated over eons. NET Power says its power plants can supply CO2 as well as the geologic domes.