There are a number of things going on in this report of research, conducted by private parties for our US Department of Energy under Contract Number EX-76-C-01-2240.
First and foremost, we note that it is a report of technical development to refine synthesis gas, made from coal, in order to produce synthetic natural gas.
That process and this report have some implications that might not be obvious. We'll try to elaborate following the excerpt:
Title: Methanation feed gas CO2 level. Final. CO2 removal upstream or downstream from methanation
Author: Leu, J.C.
Research Organization: Braun (C.F.) and Co., Alhambra, Calif.
Publication Date: October, 1977; Report Number FE-2240-45; OSTI ID: 6773465
DOE Contract Number: EX-76-C-01-2240
Abstract: Coal gasification yields a gas which is mainly hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and carbon dioxide. For the product gas to be acceptable as a substitute for natural gas, it must contain less than 0.1 percent carbon monoxide and no more than about 3 percent carbon dioxide. To meet these limits, carbon monoxide is converted to methane, and carbon dioxide is removed from the gas. Sulfur compounds must be removed upstream of the methanation unit because the methanation catalyst is poisoned by sulfur. By changes in the design of the acid-gas-removal unit all, or part, of the CO2 can be removed with the H2S. As the amount of CO2 removal is decreased, the equipment and operating costs in the acid-gas-removal unit also decrease. It may be less costly to remove CO2 downstream of methanation because the volumetric shrinkage during methanation increases the partial pressure of the CO2. This change in partial pressure could reduce capital and operating costs compared to acid-gas removal at the lower CO2 partial pressure before methanation. Determination of the amount of CO2 which should be removed downstream of methanation should be based on process economics. The process units involved are acid-gas removal, methanation, and product drying. This study compares the costs of designs of these process units for various levels of CO2 in the methanation feed gas. In this study, we looked at methanation feed CO2 levels of 1, 8, 14, and 20 percent. If the CO2 level is 1 percent, then all of the CO2 removal is done upstream of methanation. If the CO2 level is greater than 1 percent, then a final CO2 removal unit and a trim methanator will be required after bulk methanation. The results of this study indicate that maximum CO2 removal upstream of methanation without the final CO2 cleanup is less costly. 12 Pages. System entry date: 2008 Feb 08."
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First of all, these results, of US Government-sponsored and supervised research into a key component of Coal conversion technology, were completed and reported more than thirty years ago, in 1977.
They weren't really published, and actually made available to the US taxpaying public who funded the work, until more than thirty years later; two years ago, in February of 2008.
Questions that fact raises aside, consider:
They were working to refine "natural" gas which was made from coal. Not only that, but it's plain their work was, apparently, quite sophisticated, indicating that a significant body of information on the subject had already been established.
And, as we've documented in our reports to the WV Coal Association, we have known how to make "pipeline" gas, from coal, since the 1950's.
Such "syngas", as should by now be well-known to our readers, can be condensed and converted, via Fischer-Tropsch and related technologies, into liquid fuels.
Further, left unmentioned - because they likely, in 1977, weren't known - are the potentials to, once the synthesis gas, which was made from coal, has undergone "methanation", as in the above, to form, primarily Methane, that Methane could then be recombined with the CO2 that had been originally "removed from the gas", in a "Tri-reforming" process, as described by Song and Grimes at Penn State University, as we've documented, to consume the CO2 and synthesize liquid fuels.
We wonder if even more CO2, collected from flue gas or the atmosphere, could be added to the original mix of Methane and Carbon Dioxide, to synthesize even more liquid fuels via Tri-reforming.
The potential to solve our national liquid fuel shortage through technologies based on coal, and on some of the byproducts of our coal use, is there. Many roads to the destination have been started, but none, it seems, completed.