Since we are today, via separate dispatch, sending along report of: United States Patent: 6664207; wherein our own United States Government confirms that ConocoPhillips knows how to convert Carbon Dioxide into the liquid hydrocarbon fuels, Methanol and Dimethyl Ether, we wanted to confirm for you herein that Conoco knows how to do the very same thing with Coal.
Comment further concerning United States Patent: 6664207follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 6,638,892 - Syngas Conversion and Catalyst Employed Therefor
Date: October, 2003
Inventor: An-hsiang Wu, et. al., Texas and Oklahoma
Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company, Houston
Abstract: A process for the conversion of syngas by contact of syngas under conversion conditions with catalyst having as components zinc oxide, copper oxide, aluminum oxide, ... zeolite and clay in ... a one step process for conversion of syngas to dimethyl ether (and) a two step process for conversion of syngas to light olefins ... .
Claims: A catalyst suitable for the conversion of syngas ... .
Dimethyl ether is a clean and efficient alternative diesel fuel which can be produced by the dehydration of methanol which can be synthesized from syngas. There is a significant economic advantage in integrating the process for producing dimethyl ether from syngas into a single process. There is also a continued expansion of the uses to which light olefins can be put and therefore a commercial reward for improving the methods by which light olefins can be produced. Syngas has proved to be an attractive source from which light olefins can be obtained.
Synthesis gas (syngas) is a gaseous mixture of hydrogen and at least one carbon oxide, particularly carbon monoxide. Syngas is obtained using well known processes by the partial combustion or gasification of any organic material such as coal ... .
It is well known that Syngas can be subjected to a heterogeneous catalytic reaction using a copper-based catalyst such as copper oxide, zinc oxide and aluminum oxide to produce methanol.
This is the same catalyst that is used in this invention along with ... zeolite ... to produce dimethyl ether."
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So, the fact that "syngas" obtained by the "gasification of ... coal" can be made "to produce methanol" and "dimethyl ether" is, in certain circles, "well known".
Those circles do not, plainly, include the general public resident in US Coal Country.
Again: Such "dimethyl ether" is a serviceable Diesel fuel, as is; and, Methanol, also a decent liquid fuel, can, via, for just one instance, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) process, be further converted into Gasoline.
Moreover, since Conoco's technology for manufacturing such valuable liquid fuel commodities from Coal relies, as specified herein, on the "gasification of ... coal" to generate an initial "syngas", which is then condensed into the desired liquid products, it seems possible that some Carbon Dioxide might be generated as a co-product.