"OIL: Synthetic

Out of St. Louis one day last week glided a diesel-powered Burlington train with a cargo of bigwigs from the coal, oil and auto industries and the Department of the Interior. The big diesel was burning oil made from coal—the first time in U.S. railroading that a train has ever run on synthetic fuel.

The train swung 188 miles up the Mississippi to the sleepy, picturesque town of Louisiana, Mo. There the passengers witnessed the dedication of two plants, developed by the Bureau of Mines at a cost of $15 million, to convert coal into oil. This was the biggest step the U.S. had yet taken to create a synthetic oil industry against the possibility of war or of exhaustion of petroleum reserves.

The plants which made the oil that drove the dedication train will turn out about 400 gallons a day—at least ten times as much as has been produced in any of the 15-odd smaller pilot plants so far built by Government and industry. But it was still far short of the 10,000-gallon daily production of a full-sized commercial plant on the scale of those that powered Germany's Luftwaffe during World War II.

It is different in another way. Built and operated by the huge Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., it is the only commercial plant in the world that uses coal as a direct raw material for producing chemicals. By means of hydrogenation, a method of pulverizing coal and combining it with hydrogen under extreme pressure, it produces cheap hydrocarbons.

With the new plant, Union Carbide opens the door to an infinite variety of new products. From a new abundance of such coal-hydrogenation chemicals as toluene, xylene, napthalene and phenol, predicted Union Carbide's President Morse Dial, will come an endless stream of new medicines and drugs, long-wearing and fireproof fabrics, new paints and detergents, better weed-killers and insecticides.

Saving Time. Hydrogenation of coal is not a Union Carbide invention; the Germans used a similar method to produce gasoline during World War II, and the U.S. Government is also using it at a synthetic liquid-fuel plant at Louisiana, Mo. (TIME, May 23, 1949). But Union Carbide is the first to build such a plant as a source of chemicals. After long research, it has succeeded in cutting the hydrogenation process from an hour to a few minutes, reducing the amount of high-cost hydrogen needed and boosting production of such chemicals as phenol (a base for plastics) and aniline (a base for dyestuffs) as much as 500 times the output by previous methods based on coke.

More Expansion. Until now, these and other "aromatic" chemicals (also used in perfumes, synthetic rubber, explosives and drugs) have been based on raw materials drawn from byproducts of the steel industry's coke ovens. Yet demand for them is growing at an average rate of 30% a year, while the supply has been growing by less than 5%. With the information gained from the new pilot plant, Union Carbide hopes soon to build a full-scale hydrogenation plant which will help solve this raw-materials problem for good."

So, out of Institute, WV, we learn that a "full-scale" coal "hydrogenation plant" could "solve" a major chemical manufacturer's "raw-materials problem for good". And, out of St. Louis, MO, we learn that diesel fuel made from coal can power a full-size locomotive. Keep in mind, as well, that coal can provide fuel for airplanes, too - Jennings Randolph's small one and "Germany's Luftwaffe during World War II".

Speaking of the Luftwaffe, to range even further, let's not forget army tanks. You will, hopefully, recall our documentation of General Patton's use of captured, German, coal-derived synthetic fuel to power his armored columns across the remains of the Third Reich.

We seem to have known a lot more about making liquid fuels out of coal for our planes, trains, automobiles and army tanks back in the 1940's than we do now. Anyone know, or care to speculate on, why that might be?