We feel compelled to urge study of, and reflection on, the full contents of this submission. Our handicaps simply don't allow us to explain it and distil it's essence nearly as adequately we would wish, nearly as adequately as the revelations confirmed in the full body of this US Government document deserve.
Note that we earlier made report of United States Patent 2,838,388, for "Gasifying Carbonaceous Fuels", which was issued, in June of 1958, to Texaco, then more formerly referred to as "The Texas Company", for a process wherein a "treatment of coal" was described. Such "treatment" entailed gasifying Coal "with oxygen and steam to produce a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen as the synthesis feed gas", which syngas could then "be converted to motor fuels by the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis".
As we see herein, and as we will see in even more dispatches to follow, Texaco, since assimilated by the Chevron amoeba, kept at it; and, our United States Government agreed that they continued to make progress in the development of practical technology which enables the gasification of Coal and, importantly, many other Carbon-containing materials, with Steam, to synthesize more versatile, and more valuable, hydrocarbons.
We think, though, and alert you to our impression, that the technology disclosed herein is both definitive and quite sophisticated, with important, and even critical, implications that are not clearly stated.
Comment, with our take on those implications, follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 2,941, 877 - Hydrocarbon Conversion Process
Date: June, 1960
Inventor: James Grahame, NY
Assignee: Texaco Development Corporation, NY
Abstract: This invention relates to a method and apparatus for the conversion of hydrocarbons and carbonaceous fuels to a gas comprising carbon monoxide and hydrogen ... .
(In reactions) to produce a gas comprising carbon monoxide and hydrogen, commonly referred to as synthesis gas ... fuel is reacted with a limited amount of oxygen ... to produce primarily carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
Water ... in the form of steam ... may be added ... (to effect) an increase in the production of hydrogen.
Alternatively ... carbon dioxide ... may be included (to) increase the production of carbon monoxide.
Independently of the type of fuel (raw material) employed, the relative proportions of hydrogen and carbon monoxide in the product may be varied by introducing additional hydrogen into the reaction ... in the form of water or steam ... or by introducing additional carbon in the form of carbon dioxide.
The process of this invention may be applied to diverse fuels including gaseous, liquid and solid hydrocarbons and carbonaceous fuels, for example coal ... ."
----------
Coal, it should be clear, is the only one of many the many "carbonaceous fuels" available that can currently be provided in the economically-sufficient volumes to make this process feasible, commercially practical.
However, this sophisticated technology, if you take the time to study the full Disclosure, does enable the use of virtually any Carbon-containing, and Carbon-recycling, material, whether it be "gaseous, liquid (or) solid", and, in addition to Coal, such materials, according to other of Texaco's patented technologies we have reviewed, some of which have already been reported to the WV Coal Association, would include "wastes" such as sewer sludge and scrapped auto tires.
Renewable and sustainable botanical products and wastes, especially cellulose, which could include crop residues, sawdust and newsprint; and, purpose-grown algal biomass after the oils had been extracted for conversion into diesel or jet fuel, as we have documented to be feasible and under current development; would all, in this Texaco process, be suitable co-feeds with Coal for conversion by Steam into hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
Moreover, and very importantly: The disclosed technology reveals that the product gas composition can be monitored, and - as in our excerpts above, in order to generate a hydrocarbon synthesis gas of a composition designed for catalysis into specific hydrocarbons - additional Hydrogen can be added by increasing the amount of "water or steam" in the reaction mix; and, additional "carbon dioxide ... may be included".
In sum, this US Government-certified technology confirms a number of facts we have, variously and separately, from other sources, already documented.
Among them: Coal can be converted, through interaction with Steam, into hydrocarbons; such Coal conversion processes can be designed to incorporate other, renewable and sustainable, carbon-containing resources as co-feed raw materials with the Coal; and, the amount of available Hydrogen, from Steam, can be varied, so as to allow for supplementing the synthesis gas with even more "additional carbon in the form of carbon dioxide".
Components of sustainability, and both direct and indirect Carbon Dioxide recycling, are incorporated in the production of a synthesis gas, from Steam and Coal, that can, in essence, be, as we would put it, "tailor made". It can be designed and adjusted in composition to be suitable for catalytic condensation into a range of liquid hydrocarbons.
