Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information - Sponsored by OSTI
The link above, and the one imbedded just below, and attached as a document file, should take you to one quarterly report of a research project sponsored by our US Department of Energy, and undertaken for the DOE by Consol, and Consol's subcontractor, the University of Kentucky.
Consol and UK were developing, for the DOE, a "Novel Coal Liquefaction Concept".
This is just a progress report, made in November, 1998, for a quarter's worth of work completed in September of 1998. Yet, the entire contract was only supposed to run through August of 1998, after having started in May of 1995. So, if we read it all correctly, this should have been something of a final, or the final quarter's report. Yet, more work, further development, is stated to be planned.
And, no, we have not yet been able to track down the full, final report; if there is one.
If you have followed our dispatches, you will recognize the names of some of the individual researchers involved from our reports on their other, independent, efforts into the development of coal liquefaction technologies.
In any case, another link to, and some excerpts from, the attached document follow:
View Document
"Exploratory Research on Novel Coal Liquefaction Concept
Quarterly Technical Progress Report; July 1 through September 30, 1998
S. D. Brandes; CONSOL Inc.; Research & Development; Library, PA 15129
Under Contract to: United States Department of Energy; Contract No. DE-AC22-94PC95050
November 17, 1998; Report Number: DOE/PC 95050-56
CONTRACT INITIATION DATE: May 24, 1995; ANTICIPATED COMPLETION DATE: August 31, 1998
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: R. A. Winschel, S. D. Brandes
SUBCONTRACTORS:University of Kentucky CAER - F. J. Derbyshire, G. M. Kimber,"
(We interrupt at this point to explain that much of what is presented in the report uses so much jargon, and makes so many abbreviated references to things already reported in earlier documents, that the bulk of it would make no sense to anyone not privy to the project from the git-go. We have extracted some very brief statements of general import.)
"All experimental testing for the contract was completed. Economic evaluations for the conceptual
process are under way.
First-Stage Tests: All first-stage tests are complete.
Second-Stage Catalytic Upgrading: Experimentation is complete. .
Filtration: ... The base cost of post-upgrading filtration could be reduced by pre-distilling the
unfiltered hydrotreater product to increase the solids loading... .
These tests completed all experimental work for the contract.
Engineering and Economic Study
The first-stage Run 41 series elementally balanced material balances and net yields by boiling
range were revised ... . Elementally balanced material balances and net yields by boiling range were prepared for the second-stage tests ... .
Data from pilot-scale coal liquefaction units indicates that the expected methane yield is approximately 75% of the combined ethane plus propane yield per unit of resid converted. The methane yield was adjusted on this basis.
(Our take on the above: They were gasifying, further converting, as we have documented specifically to have been done in Spain, using "resid" from FMC's New Jersey Coal Liquefaction pilot plant, the residual carbonaceous material left by primary processes of coal liquefaction. Further value can be extracted from such "resids".)
Work on the evaluation of the Novel Concept Conceptual Commercial Plant Case (T4NCC) based on the Task 4 experimental results (Run 41 series) was begun. The following were completed:
• Integrated liquefaction system material balance
• Liquefaction distillate upgrading balance
• First-stage CO make-up, recover, and recycle system balance
• Second-stage hydrogen make-up, recovery, and recycle system balance
• Gasification system heat and material balances
• First- and second-stage reactor systems heat balances and reactor sizing
• Fuel balance and C LPG by-product rate
• Electrical power requirements and internal power production rate
• Estimated capital costs for nine of the fifteen process units.
(Interesting, detailed stuff, eh? Note that there appears to be a "LPG - (liquid petroleum gas) - by-product" generated by this process. Where are the full results? And, why aren't we using them?)
A quarterly review meeting was held with project participants at CONSOL R&D in Library, PA, on July 8. A review meeting with DOE (M. Nowak, Contract COR) was held on July 15, 1998. Meeting reports were issued.
(May we see the "Meeting reports", please? We US taxpayers paid for them.)
All Task 4 experimental testing is complete. The economic evaluation of the Novel Concept Conceptual Commercial Plant based on Task 4 results will be completed. A draft of the Task 4/Final Report will be completed and sent to DOE for approval. Additional journal papers are planned; these will describe the filtration work and the overall process design for the Novel Concept process."
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Okay, if, a decade ago, we, the people of the US, hired Consol to develop an "economic evaluation of" a "Conceptual Commercial Plant" for liquefying coal, where is it?
We, all of us, paid for this work. And, we, all of us, have a right to see it, to review it, to have our own experts publicly analyze it for us; and, to decide what we should do next as far as further developing the technologies that are available, technologies which would enable us to convert our vast domestic reserves of coal into the liquid fuels were now dependent on unreliable, sometimes unfriendly, overseas powers for the supply of.