Low-pressure hydrocarbon synthesis process
With voices of note now urging, with a stab at artful allusion, that someone, anyone, get to the "bottom" of Louisiana's undersea oil spill, we started mining - not down into the accumulated and hidden layers of oil company boardroom cesspits, but, through the accessible, though sadly unnoticed, strata of published literature.
And, we dug up the fact that, more than half a century ago, Louisiana, Big Oil and our US Government knew that they didn't have to drill deep into the Gulf, with ocean oil platforms, at the southern end of the state, to get oil.
All they had to do was start scraping the dirt, with bulldozers, up at the northern end.
Not well known is the fact that Louisiana has some appreciable, though unappreciated, shallow deposits of lignite coal - far removed from her once-lovely coast.
But, Big Oil knew it; and, more than half a century ago, they were looking ahead to the day when, for whatever reason, they would be denied access to oil in the Gulf.
Comment follows excerpts from the above link to:
"United States Patent 2,552,308 - Low Pressure Hydrocarbon Synthesis
Date: May, 1951
Inventors: Fred Buchman and Alex Voorhies, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Assignee: Standard Oil Development Company
Abstract: The present invention relates to the catalytic reaction between carbon monoxide and hydrogen to form valuable liquid hydrocarbons.
The synthetic production of liquid hydrocarbons from gas mixtures ... of carbon monoxide and hydrogen is a matter of record.
Most processes for synthesis of hydrocarbons from coal ... involve (high pressures).
It is the principal object of this invention to provide an improved hydrocarbon synthesis process operable at moderate pressures ... ."
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There seems little point in belaboring the technicalities.
In sum, they knew, in Louisiana, more than 50 years ago, that they could make, via an improved process, "hydrocarbons from coal".
They never had to despoil the beautiful Gulf Coast with a single leaky oil rig.
So, why did they? Why don't you ask our Coal-obsessed friends, the environmentalists, to look into that?
Somebody should.
