Again from more than half a century ago, we cite both Standard Oil and our United States Government in support of the fact that whether we need Gasoline or "Natural" Gas, we can make them both from Coal.
And, better, we can make them both as co-products originating from a fully-integrated, self-sufficient Coal gasification and liquefaction industrial process.
Comment follows brief excerpts from the enclosed link to and attached file of:
"United States Patent 2,543,795 - Liquid and Gaseous Fuels from Coal
Date: March, 1951
Inventors: Ivan Mayer and Henry Ogorzaly, NJ
Assignee: Standard Oil Development Company, DE
Abstract: The present invention relates to improvement in the art of carbonizing, gasifying and treating coal with a gas containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide in such a way as to form a fuel gas of high heating value.
The present invention represents an improvement over the old processes ... (and) ... results in improved quantities of methane.
The reaction between carbon monoxide and hydrogen is highly exothermic (while) heat is required to bring the raw coal feed to coking temperature."
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The inventors make reference to a US Patent application, by Standard Oil colleagues, for an "Improved Process for the Enrichment of Water Gas", which did, in fact, become a patented technology about which we've earlier made report to the West Virginia Coal Association.
In it, in essence, Steam is reacted with hot Coal to generate a Hydrogen-rich synthesis gas, the "gas containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide", as above, which is then, in this process, used as the gasifying agent for raw Coal.
In that capacity, as we understand it, it serves to extract the Carbon from the Coal and make with it an enriched, more Hydrogen-Carbon balanced synthesis gas which is better suited for further catalytic conversion into Methane and/or liquid hydrocarbons.
Moreover, this process relates to some other US Patents, about which we have yet to report, on "balancing" the heat, or energy, within a total Coal conversion system. It relates, as in "reaction between carbon monoxide and hydrogen is highly exothermic (while) heat is required to bring the raw coal feed to coking temperature", above, to the fact, as we have documented now from a variety of other sources, that some reaction steps in a Coal conversion process generate heat which can then be used to drive other necessary reactions in the process of synthesizing liquid or gaseous fuels from Coal.
The entire process can be made, as some references put it, "thermo-neutral"; meaning, in plain terms, that we can make Gasoline from Coal, and we don't really need anything but Coal and Water to get the job done.
Do you think we might be able to find either of those two things to spare along the rivers in US Coal Country?