ScienceDirect - Progress in Energy and Combustion Science : Coal: Energy for the future
The enclosed is more of an op-ed piece than an informative explanation of how Coal can be economically converted into liquid fuels.
But, the sources - MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, and the National Research Council - are of such unimpeachable character that we believe them when they say that we can make premium liquid fuel from Coal that would be "competitive with 25-30 $/bbl imported crude oil".
However astute these researchers must be, however, they apparently did not, as they wrote this, in 1995, foresee or anticipate the dramatic and sudden magnitude of the effect domestic US politics and international affairs would have on the price of imported oil.
As we explain further, following excerpts from:
"Coal: Energy for the Future
J.P. Longwell, E.S. Rubin and J. Wilson
Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA
Center for Environmental Studies, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
National Research Council, Washington, DC
August 1995
Abstract: Coal is by far the largest fossil fuel resource in the U.S. with known reserves adequate to meet expected demand without major increases in production cost well beyond the year 2010. In contrast, domestic natural gas, its principal fossil fuel competitor for power generation, is a more limited resource and increases in production cost and decreased availability are projected to occur after the year 2000, thus weakening its ability to compete with coal for power generation in the U.S.
Renewable and nuclear energy sources are not expected to displace coal to a major extent during the 1995–2040 time period considered here.
For manufacture of liquid and gaseous fuels, coal is projected to become competitive with other resources (petroleum, oil shale and bitumen) in the 2021–2040 time period.
This review is based on an assessment of DOE's coal research, development, demonstration and commercialization programs for the time period 1995–2040. This assessment was conducted under the auspices of the National Research Council, in response to a request from the Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy.
For the above time period, electric power generation is expected to dominate the use of coal, although a growing production of merchant medium Btu gas and liquid transportation fuels is anticipated during the period 2021–2040. The current DOE coal program emphasizes activities through 2010 and is focused almost exclusively on power generation technologies with small programs on other uses.
Funding for many of the latter programs has been reduced significantly in recent years.
As natural gas prices rise, production of cleaned coal-based medium Btu gas for use in existing natural gas fueled-combined cycles and for industrial heat becomes economic and could relieve the pressure on the supply of natural gas for other uses.
Conversion of this coal-based medium Btu gas to methane (SNG) might follow towards the end of the 2021–2040 time period. For this use, high efficiency oxygen blown-cold gas clean up gasification is needed. At present, however, the DOE gasification program is concentrated on air blown processes specifically aimed at integration with power generation.
Production of medium Btu (synthesis gas) will allow concurrent production of hydrogen or Fischer-Tropsch liquids. The use of simplified once through processes with production of electric power from unconverted feed and low value products (such as methane) could bring costs of premium liquid fuels to a level competitive with 25–30 $/bbl imported crude oil (DOE financing basis).
Current projections indicated that the price of imported crude oil could be in this range in the 2021–2050 time frame. Direct liquefaction costs, with continued R&D, are believed to be approximately the same as indirect liquefaction, but with 5–10% higher efficiency and correspondingly less production of CO2."
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Forget the future "2021-2050" and "25–30 $/bbl" . Oil opened today, April 16, 2010, at $85.35 per barrel.
So, shouldn't "Fischer-Tropsch ... premium liquid fuels", especially with the concurrent "production of electric power" during their synthesis from Coal, be even more "competitive" now?
