In a report not long ago, available as: Conoco Coal to Methanol | Research & Development | News; we introduced United States Patent 4,218,389, from 1980, which is labeled as a "Process for Making Methanol", which was awarded to Oklahoma scientists in the employ of Conoco; and, wherein Coal is identified as the primary raw material for "Making Methanol".
Herein, we see that Conoco continued their development of such technology and were, four years later, awarded yet another United States Patent for improvements on such Coal liquefaction processes.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 4,430,444 - Making Methanol Using a Slagging Gasifier
Date: February, 1984
Inventor: Eric Reichl, CT
Assignee: Conoco Inc., DE
Abstract: A process for producing methanol from solid carbonaceous material comprising providing a gasifier means and a methanol formation means connected to said gasifier means, said gasifier means comprising a gasification chamber defined by a gasification chamber wall having an upper and a lower portion, an upper chamber wall inlet means for feeding said solid carbonaceous material into said gasification chamber, a lower chamber wall gas injection means for introducing gas into said gasification chamber, and an upper chamber wall gas outlet means, said gas outlet being connected to a gas product conduit, said methanol formation means comprising a methanol formation reactor means, reactor output conduit means, condensor means, and condensor output conduit means, said reactor conduit means being connected to said lower chamber wall gas injection means, said condenser output conduit means being connected to said condenser means and to said methanol formation reactor means, said gas product conduit being connected to said condenser means.
Claims: A process for producing methanol from solid coal.
Summary: A process for producing methanol from solid carbonaceous material."
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We leave our excerpts abbreviated since there isn't much really new in the full Disclosure.
As a close read reveals, Coal is being gasified with Water, and being made thereby to produce a synthesis gas consisting, as Conoco specifies multiple times, of "hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane", all of which are then directed into a processor for catalytic condensation into Methanol.
Methanol, we again remind you, can, via, for just one example, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) technology, be further converted into Gasoline.
And, consider that the Methane, co-produced along with Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, isn't really needed for the catalytic condensation reaction of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen to form Methanol.
That Methane could, we submit, instead be separated from the CO and H2, prior to their conversion into Methanol; and, then be directed into a separate process for reaction with Carbon Dioxide reclaimed from an unrelated industrial source, in a process based on bi-reforming or tri-reforming technology, as explained best most recently by Penn State University, but which has been known, as we've documented for you, to the US petroleum industry since the WWII era, and made, through the consumption of CO2, to generate even more Methanol.
Regardless, we have herein further confirmation, from our own United States Government, that:
If we want and need Methanol, and we submit that there are compelling reasons why we should and would want it, then we can make all of it we might need or want out of our abundant Coal.