Herein, we present further, early confirmation of the fact that Coal can be gasified with Steam in order to generate hydrocarbon gases suitable for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons.
And, interestingly, it comes from a company whose commercial interests don't lie in the production of fuels, but, in the manufacture of processing equipment primarily for oil refineries and energy generation industries.
From a variety of web-based sources, including their own web site, we learn that the Babcock & Wilcox Company is a US-based corporation devoted mainly to providing design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and facilities management services to a range of nuclear, renewable and fossil power industries, and government customers, in more than ninety countries. They have been around for awhile, since, during WWII, more than half of the US Navy fleet was powered by their boilers.
In any case, during the years after WWII, they, as did others, must have seen the potential, the promise, in manufacturing synthetic liquid fuels from Coal, and began making plans to supply and service what should have become, what these industry experts perceived would be, a growth industry, as witnessed by the following excerpts, with comment appended, from the enclosed link to, and attached file of:
"United States Patent 3,018,174 - High Pressure Pulverized Coal Gasifier
Date: January, 1962
Inventor: Andrew Steever, CT
Assignee: The Babcock & Wilcox Company, NY
Abstract: This invention relates to the production of synthesis gas by the reaction of pulverized carbonaceous fuel, gas, and steam and, more particularly, to a novel superatmospheric pressure gasifier, or reactor, for producing the synthesis gas, and associated pressurized fuel feeding and gas receiving components.
The fundamental principles involved in reacting coal with oxygen and steam, to produce a synthesis gas comprising essentially H2 and CO are well-known ... . ... coal and oxygen react to produce CO2, which, in an endothermic reaction with the carbon particles, is all converted to CO. The steam, by dissociation and reaction, produces H2, so the product gas is essentially H2 and CO. This product gas may be utilized in known procedures for producing hydrocarbons."
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First, we urge you to consider one clear point, in confirmation of earlier of our reports: "CO2 ... in an endothermic reaction with the carbon particles", i.e. Coal, "is all converted to CO", and thus made available, as a reactive gas, for further interaction with Hydrogen donor gases, or elemental Hydrogen generated via one of multiple known processes from Water, such as, for instance, via the dissociation of Steam over hot Coal, to produce "hydrocarbons".
In other words, in this Babcock & Wilcox technology, Coal is oxidized to generate CO2, and that CO2 is then converted into the reactive CO.
And we have, thus, clear, US Government-certified statement that, not only can Coal be converted into hydrocarbons, but, by extension, through reaction with hot Coal, and subsequent processing with Steam, so can Carbon Dioxide.
In 1962, this major petroleum industry services company asserted, and our own United States Government confirmed, as herein, that "fundamental principles" for reacting "coal with ... steam" to manufacture an hydrogenated synthesis gas well-suited for use in "known procedures for producing hydrocarbons" were already "well-known".
That was, essentially, one half of a century ago.
And, by then, the petroleum engineering services industry was already gearing up, as by this evidence, to participate in a synthetic liquid fuels industry based on the Steam-gasification of our own domestic Coal.
Why have we United States citizens, especially those of us resident in US Coal Country, yet to apply, or been enabled to apply, on a practical basis, such "well-known (and) fundamental principles" for such use of our abundant domestic Coal, and, again by extension, our falsely maligned Carbon Dioxide, to free us from economic enslavement to foreign OPEC powers and multinational Big Oil monopolists?
We, all United States citizens, have a right to, we should demand to, know.
