Without citing the specifics, we remind you of our previous documentation of the fact that both Methanol and electricity can be co-produced from an integrated facility employing Coal as the primary raw material.
Coal is first gasified, in those technologies, to supply synthesis gas, via separate process streams, to both a steam generator, where the syngas is simply burned, or heat is extracted from the hot syngas, to create steam for driving electric turbines; and, to a Methanol synthesis reactor, where some of the syngas is catalytically condensed into Methanol.
The co-produced Methanol is most often posited in those schemes to be stored on-site as a fuel that can be used for generating more power during periods of peak demand.
Herein, scientists in Germany demonstrate that such a system can be designed to be so productive of Methanol, and some related compounds, that there could and would be economical excess, above and beyond peak electricity generation needs, available for commercial sale and utilization.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 4,665,688 - Power Generating Station with Integrated Coal Gasification
Date: May, 1987
Inventors: Ulrich Schiffers and Rainer Muller, Germany
Abstract: Power generating plant with an integratd coal gasification plant, with a heat exchanger and gas purification plant connected to the coal gasifier, with a gas turbine and steam power generating plant part connected to the heat exchanger and gas purification plant, and with a methanol synthesis plant. The methanol generated in the methanol synthesis plant as well as the synthesis exhaust gas of the methanol synthesis can be fed, at least partially, to a further subplant for a second chemical manufacturing process and the excess synthesis exhaust gas from the methanol synthesis and the exhaust from this further subplant, to the combustion chamber of the gas turbine power generating plant part.
Claims: Power generating station with an integrated coal gasification plant comprising ... a coal gasification plant ... to produce raw fuel gas containing a mixture of gaseous constituents including CO, H2, CO2 and H2S, an air separation unit to separate air into oxygen and nitrogen, and a compressor to supply the air separation unit with air (and) a gas turbine power plant which includes a gas turbine, a combustion chamber of the gas turbine, an air compressor for introduction of air into the combustion chamber, and a generator coupled to the turbine (and) a steam generating station which includes a steam generator connected to an exhaust gas line of the gas turbine (and) a heat exchanger in which the raw gas is utilized to generate steam and conduit means for passage of the generated steam to the steam turbine, and a gas purification plant for the removal of impurities to produce a purified gas (and) a methanol synthesis plant having a methanol synthesis reactor for the partial conversion of the purified gas from the gasifier into methanol and a methanol separator connected to the synthesis reactor for the separation of the reaction products from the synthesis reactor into liquid methanol and methanol synthesis exhaust gas ... (and) an additional acetic acid synthesis plant for the utilization of at least part of the methanol and the methanol synthesis exhaust gas to produce acetic acid and a residual gas as a byproduct, and connecting means for supplying excess methanol synthesis exhaust gas and residual gas to the combustion chamber, including a water electrolysis plant wherein water is dissociated into oxygen and hydrogen, an oxygen line connected from the electrolysis plant to the coal gasifier and a hydrogen line to a gas feedline leading to the methanol synthesis reactor.
Background and Field: The invention relates to a power generating station with an integrated coal gasification plant, with a heat exchanger and gas purification plant connected to the coal gasifier, a gas turbine and a steam power generating station part connected to the heat exchanger and a gas purification plant, and a methanol synthesis plant (and) an additional synthesis plant for the utilization of at least part of the methanol and the methanol synthesis exhaust gas to produce a product other than methanol .
Summary: An object of the invention is to improve the efficiency of such a power generating station and to produce in the process chemical raw materials inexpensively."
------------
The full Disclosure is far more detailed, and includes, for instance, explanation of how otherwise waste heat, and waste exhaust gasses from the Methanol synthesis stage, can be recycled back into the system for additional economies.
Note, too, that the electrolysis of water, likely using some of the co-produced electricity, is posited as a means to obtain any needed extra Hydrogen that might be required for hydrogenation of the Coal syngas, in order to satisfy the needs of the Methanol synthesis.
Further, other products of commercial value, such as acetic acid, can be made from the Coal syngas and Methanol synthesis by-products, as in, above, the specified use of "the methanol synthesis exhaust gas to produce a product other than methanol".
The point is, we can "improve the efficiency" of a Coal-based "power generating station", by "inexpensively" co-producing "chemical raw materials", which include, primarily, Methanol.
And, once we have thus "inexpensively" produced Methanol, from Coal, in addition to its many valuable other uses, such Methanol can then be converted, via, for one example, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) technology, into much-needed Gasoline.