In this review of foreign coal-to-liquid conversion technologies, these US Government researchers reveal one of the key reasons, aside from Big Oil avarice and connivance, that we don't now have a domestic industry based on the conversion of abundant US coal into liquid fuels and chemicals.
The excerpt, comment appended:
"Title: Foreign coal liquefaction: survey and assessment.
Author: Pay, T.D., Patel, S.S., Ulrich, W.C., Cochran, H.D., et.al.
Date: May, 1984
Report: ORNL/TM-8288 DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Abstract: The Foreign Coal Liquefaction Technology Survey and Assessment is part of the International Energy Technology Assessment effort. Australia, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom were selected because they have active coal liquefaction programs, are using or developing technologies that could be used in the U.S. and/or are involved with U.S. coal liquefaction programs. Australia has enough coal but does not have an extensive liquefaction technology base. Other countries such as Germany and Japan are proposing joint coal liquefaction projects with Australia. Germany has again become a world leader in the development and marketing of coal liquefaction and gasification technology. Japan has no domestic oil or natural gas resources to speak of and has very little coal. Diversification of its energy supply base is the keystone of Japan's national strategy. New Zealand's short-term plans are to convert much of its natural gas resources into gasoline using the Mobil methanol-to-gasoline process. South Africa, as a result of a major strategic decision made over 30 years ago, has applied pre-war German technology to its coal resources and developed the only commercial-scale indirect coal liquefaction facilities in the world today. The United Kingdom possesses large reserves of coal. The need to covert it to liquid and gaseous fuels is not immediate, however, because the country is self-sufficient in oil and natural gas at the present time. The United States, which has the potential to duplicate the positions of both Germany and South Africa as leaders in the development, application and marketing of coal liquefaction technology has not done so because of a lack of domestic economic incentive (i.e., cheap oil) and the absence of governmental direction and support. 232 references, 45 tables, 38 figures"
Please don't miss the point. Since "cheap oil", as in this 1984 report, is a thing of the past, the only barrier to establishing United States domestic "active coal liquefaction programs" similar to those in "Australia, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom" is "the absence of governmental direction and support".
Our own, US, Government, in this US Department of Energy summation, confesses that it's own failure to provide needed "direction and support" is the main reason we don't now have a domestic coal-to-liquid conversion industry.
The confession was made more than twenty years ago. What have they done in the subsequent two decades to correct their inadequacies? Simply saying they were wrong doesn't make it right; and, we continue to suffer the many ills of oil importation because our own government agencies didn't do, and, as far as we know, still aren't doing, their jobs.