Among our many reports documenting the development, by the companies which became ExxonMobil, of a variety of Coal conversion and liquefaction technologies, in ongoing efforts that spanned decades, we more recently submitted one, just this past September, which revealed the somewhat startling fact that our US Government had actually, with our tax money, not only paid Exxon to refine Coal liquefaction science; but, had allowed them to establish and retain primary ownership rights to the US Patent that evolved from their public-financed CoalTL work.
Some details from that earlier report are:
"United States Patent 4,123,347 - Coal Liquefaction Process; October, 1978; Assignee: Exxon Research and Engineering Company, NJ; "Government Interests: The government of the United States of America has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. E(49-18)-2353 awarded by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration.".
Well, even though it seems to us like hiring the fox to be the tenant farmer at your chicken ranch, our Federal Government must have liked the way all of that turned out - with no Coal liquefaction facilities being subsequently built and the general public not even hearing about it - since they then hired Exxon, under a separate tax money-financed contract, to develop even more Coal conversion technology, more CoalTL science about which We the People have never heard, and of which Exxon was allowed to retain ownership.
That fact is established by the following statement found in the United States Patent we enclose, via the above link, in this dispatch:
"The Government of the United States of America has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. DE-FCol-77ET10069 (formerly Contract No. EF-77-A-01-2893) awarded by the United States Energy Research and Development Administration, now the U.S. Department of Energy."
Additional comment follows more complete excerpts from:
"United States Patent 4,347,117 - Donor Solvent Coal Liquefaction with Bottoms Recycle
Date: August, 1982
Inventor: Richard Bauman, et. al., Texas
Assignee: Exxon Research & Engineering Company, NJ
Abstract: An improved process for liquefying solid carbonaceous materials wherein increased naphtha yields are achieved by effecting the liquefaction ... in the presence of recycled bottoms and a hydrogen-donor solvent ... . The coal:bottoms ratio in the feed to liquefaction will be within the range from about 1:1 to about 5:1 and the solvent or diluent to total solids ratio will be at least 1.5:1 and preferably within the range from about 1.6:1 to about 3:1.
Government Interests: The Government of the United States of America has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. DE-FCol-77ET10069 (formerly Contract No. EF-77-A-01-2893) awarded by the United States Energy Research and Development Administration, now the U.S. Department of Energy.
Claims: A process for liquefying coal and similar solid carbonaceous materials (and) wherein the recycled bottoms are slurried with the coal prior to liquefaction ... .
Background and Summary: This invention relates to an improved process for ... liquefying coal and similar carbonaceous substances ... wherein the recycled bottoms are slurried with the coal prior to liquefaction.
It has now been discovered that ... disadvantages of the prior art processes can be reduced with the method of the present invention and an improved liquefaction process provided thereby. It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide an improved liquefaction process. It is another object of this invention to provide such a liquefaction process wherein the yield of liquid products is increased. It is still a further object of this invention to provide such an improved liquefaction process wherein the relative yield of lighter and heavier boiling materials can be controlled.
(The) present invention relates to an improved process for liquefying coal and similar solid carbonaceous materials wherein total liquid yield and the relative distribution of lighter boiling and heavier boiling liquid products is controlled ... .
In general the method of the present invention can be used to liquefy any solid carbonaceous material (and the) method of this invention is particularly useful in the liquefaction of coal and may be used to liquefy any of the coals known in the prior art including anthracite, bituminous coal, subbituminous coal, lignite, peat, brown coal and the like."
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The full Disclosure does disclose the kinds of hydrocarbon liquids you can produce, from any kind of Coal, and, they are all suitable as feed stocks for further refining into standard liquid fuels.
Of interest to us, aside from the fact that we, as US citizens, are supposedly part owners of the technology, is the technical point, that, in confirmation of many earlier reports we've submitted which document the fact, carbonaceous residues that result from an initial Coal conversion process can be further treated, in this case by being recycled back into the feed of more raw Coal, and thereby made to yield even more hydrocarbon values.
The upshot of this, and all those other "bottoms" processing technologies we've documented, is that 100%, or very nearly 100%, of the Carbon contained in Coal can be accessed and converted into more versatile hydrocarbons.