Since, under separate cover, we are today sending along report of "United States Patent 5,431,855 - Processes for the Conversion of Methane to Synthesis Gas", wherein it's officially recorded by our government that Carbon Dioxide can be reacted with Methane to generate more complex, and valuable, hydrocarbons, in a process that requires little or no input of externally-supplied energy; we wanted to confirm, yet again, that such energy efficiencies, such "self-powered" potentials, also exist for processes designed to convert our abundant Coal into more valuable hydrocarbons.
Not only that, but: Such self-powered Coal conversion processes can also, again as we have elsewhere documented to be feasible, in combination with internally-generated Steam, create all of the Hydrogen needed for the complete hydrogenation of the Carbon contained in the Coal.
Moreover, Big Oil and our own United States Government, as embodied in the Patent Office, knew all of that to be true more than half a century ago.
As excerpts, with comment appended, from the enclosed link and attached file, attest:
"United States Patent 2,741,549 - Conversion of Carbonaceous Solids into Volatile Products
Date: April, 1956
Inventor: Francis Russell, NJ
Assignee: Esso Research and Engineering Company
Abstract: The present invention relates to the conversion of carbonaceous materials including solids such as all types of coal ... into volatile products such as light oils (and) gasses containing CO and H2 (i.e., Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen - your basic hydrocarbon synthesis gas.)
The present invention relates to the treatment by means of hydrogen or gasses containing pr yielding hydrogen, of carbonaceous materials, particularly materials containing sulfur ... into valuable products which are usually liquid ... .
Hot carbon ... has a strong tendency to reduce carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide.
The ... water gas reaction (which generates Hydrogen.) take(s) place between the steam and the carbon ... . ... Water gas ... is withdrawn ... to be passed ... to any suitable use as a fuel gas (or) for hydrocarbon synthesis."
----------
We close our excerpts here, since that is the sum of it: Coal and Steam provide all, they provide everything, we need to synthesize hydrocarbons: The Carbon, the Hydrogen, the Energy.
And, as we have earlier documented, from other sources, to be feasible and practical, such a process, using hot Coal and a surplus of Steam, might well have the potential to allow for the addition of supplemental Carbon Dioxide, since "Hot carbon ... has a strong tendency to reduce carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide", which can then be combined with any surplus Hydrogen from the Water Gas reaction to form additional Synthesis Gas.
We, in honesty, have no idea how feasible that might be. Our disabled circumstances absolutely prevent us from figuring out the complexities of a thing we believe to be called "stoichiometry", or similar, which concerns the reactive chemical balances of the elements involved.