Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #10124807
We have, over the long course of our reportage, several times documented and referenced the USDOE's support and management of a Coal conversion and liquefaction facility in Wilsonville, Alabama.
One example would include: DOE/BP Liquify Alabama Coal | Research & Development | News; wherein we learned that our USDOE had, inexplicably to us, engaged the services of that multi-national guardian of the environment, British Petroleum, to establish a database of "the coal liquefaction results generated at the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Two-Stage Coal Liquefaction Facility in Wilsonville".
Other reports concerning the Wilsonville operation will follow, and, herein, we discover that our local Consolidation Coal, CONSOL, who, as we have thoroughly established, had developed Coal liquefaction technologies of their own, such as the "Zinc Chloride" technology, and others, in multiple efforts involving a number of their scientists, including, perhaps most notably, Everett Gorin - winner of the American Chemical Society's 1965 Henry Storch Award, a prize, as can be learned via the link: Fuel Chemistry Storch Award; which is "given annually to the citizen of the United States who has contributed most to fundamental or engineering research on the chemistry and utilization of coal".
CONSOL's Everett Gorin won that prize, as officially stated and recorded, for his "significant contributions to an array of coal conversion processes, including ... conversion of coal to gasoline".
With apologies for the digression, we learn in the report enclosed herein, via the initial and following links, that CONSOL was contracted by the USDOE to help optimize the Alabama Coal liquefaction process, and to better characterize the Coal liquids generated by it.
A conclusion drawn by one of the CONSOL scientists involved, R.A. Winschel, in Appendix 6 of the full report, is, for us, revealing. As in our advance excerpt:
"Strategic Considerations of Coal Liquid Refining - The development of the two-stage coal liquefaction process over the past decade has resulted in remarkable improvements in process efficiency, including increased liquid yield, better product quality, improved hydrogen efficiency, and dramatic reduction in production costs.
At this stage in liquefaction development, serious consideration should be given to the refining of coal liquids into marketable transportation fuels."
That urging of such "serious consideration" was made very nearly two decades ago; and, it was based on knowledge of some serious facts concerning developments in Coal liquefaction technology, including those leading to "dramatic reduction in production costs".
As we attempt to illustrate, via more coherent excerpts from the initial and following links to:
7 Mb View Document or Access Individual Pages; DOI: 10.2172/10124807
Title: Coal liquefaction process streams characterization and evaluation. Quarterly report, April--June, 1992
Authors: S.D. Brandes, R.A. Winschel, et. al.
Report Numbers: DOE/PC/89883--53; Contract Number: AC22-89PC89883
Research Organization: CONSOL, Inc., Library, PA; Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
This is the eleventh Quarterly Technical Progress Report under DOE Contract DE-AC22-89PC89883. Major topics reported (include):
The results of a study designed to determine the effects of the conditions employed at the Wilsonville slurry preheater vessel on coal conversion ... . (Further,) resid conversion kinetics were investigated.
(Additionally, a) summary of the final report produced by Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratory,under the Participants Program is presented. (Also, five) papers which will be presented at the 204th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society are appended. One paper is authored by researchers at Advanced Fuel Research and describes work done under Phase I of the Participants Program. The second paper is authored by researchers at Lehigh University and describes work done under Phase II of the Participants Program. The third and fourth papers were authored by CONSOL. The third paper deals with the conversion of resid components in the CC-ITSL process at Wilsonville. The fourth paper describes results accumulated from Phase I of the Participants Program. The fifth paper was co-authored by CONSOL and Burns & Roe and discusses the outlook for producing specification fuels by direct liquefaction.
The Research and Development Department of CONSOL Inc. (CONSOL) is conducting a three-year project to characterize process and product streams from direct coal liquefaction process development programs sponsored by the Department of Energy.
(Sort of makes you wonder just how many "direct coal liquefaction process development programs sponsored by the Department of Energy" there really were, doesn't it)
In addition to samples from current process development programs, CONSOL maintains a bank of coal liquids samples from the SRC-I,H-Coal, ITSL (Lummus and Wilsonville) and HRI-CTSL coal liquefaction programs,and the Lummus,HRI and UOP coprocessing development programs. These samples, which represent important stages in the recent development of coal liquefaction technology,are also used.
(Did anyone among our Coal Country public have the slightest idea that there were so many Coal conversion processes out there that someone could actually maintain "a bank of coal liquid samples"?)
(One specific) objective is to ideatify, collect, and disburse appropriate samples of coal liquids for analysis by techniques that hold promise, but are not fully demonstrated, for use in liquefaction process development efforts. Samples are chosen from ongoing DOE-funded liquefaction and coprocessing projects and from CONSOL's collection of coal liquids produced during the past ten years.
(Note, that, in 1992, "DOE-funded projects" had resulted in a "collection of coal liquids" accumulated over the course of at least a full decade.)
Three CONSOL papers were submitted for the 204th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. One paper, entitled "The Chemical Nature of Coal Liquid Resids and the Implications for Process Development" authored by S. D. Brandes ,R. A. Winschel, and F. P. Burke, describes data obtained
from the Participants Program of this contract. The second paper concerns resid conversion chemistry in Wilsonville liquefaction, lt is titled "Conversion of Resid Components in CC-ITSL Processing at Wilsonville" and is authored by G. A. Robbins, R. A. Winschel,and F. P. Burke. The third paper is entitled "Strategic Considerations in Coal Liquid Refining" and is authored by P.-Z. Zhou, J. J. Marano and R. A. Winschel. The three papers are appended to this report.
(We won't include excerpts from those papers; although we might address some of them separately in later dispatches. But, we do recommend their perusal by anyone genuinely interested in the fact, that, yes, we do darned-well know how to thoroughly and efficiently convert Coal into liquid petroleum substitutes.)
Tests were conducted with three different coals: Illinois No. 6 seam, Burning Star No. 2 Mine; Wyodak arid Anderson seam, Black Thunder Mine; and Pittsburgh seam, Ireland Mine.
The coal conversions with the Pittsburgh seam coal ... were over 90 wt % ... (which) left little room (for)
improvements,
Coal conversion reported by Wilsonville .. (for specified periods were) 93.1 wt % ... and 95.1 wt % overall for the two-stage liquefaction (TSL) system."
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We'll close our excerpts here so that the point can be emphasized:
Very nearly two decades ago, our US Department of Energy and a major Appalachian Coal producer knew that "95.1%" of "Pittsburgh seam coal" could be converted, through a known and demonstrated process, into liquid petroleum substitutes which could be utilized in the production of various "specification fuels".
Our US public taxes paid for that knowledge to be established. Why hasn't that knowledge been publicly shared with us?
Again, this submission, as large as the informative 1992 file is, details only three months worth of effort, and the results of that three-month effort, out of a total Coal liquefaction study project that, obviously, spanned many years; and, which study, also obviously, was built on prior Coal liquefaction work that spanned decades.