Control Of Emissions From Lurgi Coal Gasification Plants.
Our own US EPA issued this report on Lurgi-type coal gasification processes - the starting point technology, as we understand it, for Sasol's extensive industrial operations which convert coal into liquid fuels.
Some excerpts, with one, especially, noted below:
"The purpose of this document is to provide information on Lurgi Coal Gasification Plants, their emissions, control technologies which can be used to control emissions, and the environmental and economic impacts of applying these control technologies. This document is being issued to assist State, local, and Regional EPA enforcement personnel in the determination (on a case-by-case basis) of the best available control technology for Lurgi Coal Gasification Plants.
| Descriptors: | Air pollution; Coal gasification; Desulfurization |
| Date: Reference #: | 1978 A.78.5 |
| Availability: | Yes |
| EPA Office: | Office of Air and Radiation |
| Office Suboffice: | Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards |
| Office Division: | Emission Standards and Engineering Division |
| EPA Author: | NR |
| Document Type: | Cost Analysis |
| Contractors: | NR |
| Document Status: | Final |
| Pages: | 118 |
Note the year this study was performed. No further comment on that, and the changing nature of US political governance during the interim. But, after 118 pages, our US EPA came to this one cogent conclusion about gasifying coal to make liquid fuels:
"Most of the Sulfur can be recovered as a salable product." (Quote is directly excerpted from the report. We are unable to provide a precise citation due to the nature of published summaries available to us. - JtM.)
Well, at least we now know that.
But, as we earlier documented, some sulfur compounds, which perhaps could be derived from the raw coal itself, actually facilitate and make more efficient the actual process of coal liquefaction.
As we've been saying all along: Converting our abundant coal into needed liquid fuels doesn't generate pollutants. It does, though, create valuable by-products.