As we earlier reported, and as now recorded in the West Virginia Coal Association's R&D site, the United States Environmental Protection Agency affirmed the reality of technologies for converting Coal into gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons, by promulgating technical environmental standards for Coal conversion facilities.
Herein, we see that the much-vilified EPA actually promotes the conversion of Coal into hydrocarbons, since such hydrocarbon synthesis operations, made technically and economically feasible by Coal, would enable the productive co-processing, the recycling, into hydrocarbon fuels, of wastes contaminated by toxic organic chemicals.
Coal conversion provides a way in which materials such as petroleum-contaminated soils can be "stripped" of their organic load; and, actually cleaned and returned to the environment, rather than being expensively piled into dumps, or having the areas which contain those soils just cordoned off as toxic waste sites.
Now, truth to tell, the good ole' EPA, God love 'em, can't bring themselves to come right out and say that Coal enables such a procedure.
You have to examine their tables of data to see what they did.
The gist of it: The EPA blended two parts of Pittsburgh Seam Coal with one part of toxic, contaminated soil, from an old Los Angeles, California, petroleum refinery(!), and produced a synthesis gas suitable for conversion into Methanol.
Further comment follows excerpts from the enclosed link to, and attached file of:
"Texaco Gasification Process
The United States Environmental Protection Agency; Office of Research and Development; April, 1995
Introduction: In 1980, the US Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund, to protect human health and the environment from uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.
(Later amendments mandate) implementing permanent solutions and using alternative treatment technologies or resource recovery technologies, to the maximum extent possible, to clean up hazardous waste sites.
Abstract: The Texaco Gasification Process (TGP) is a commercial gasification process which converts organic materials into syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. (High temperature conditions during gasification) destroy the hydrocarbons and organics in the feed (and) the syngas can be processed into ... methanol."
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Sadly, we cannot reproduce the tables of data for you in our excerpts. And, only in one place does the EPA, God love 'em, come right out in the body of their text and say that Coal makes this happen.
But, it is quite clear from their tables of results what they did:
The US EPA shipped two tons of Pittsburgh Seam Coal to Los Angeles, California, for each one ton of toxic, waste-contaminated soil they dug up from an old oil refinery out there, and dumped them both together into an existing Texaco gasification unit.
The result was that all of the toxic organics were destroyed, and a "syngas" which could "be processed into methanol" was produced.
We invite, we urge, you to open and examine the report.
In no place does the EPA come right out and say that they have to mix Superfund soil with Coal to make this happen, but that fact is clearly spelled out in more than one of their graphics.
