There are, in the extensive literature available concerning the refining and manufacture of liquid hydrocarbon fuels, many, many references, as we're certain you are by now aware, to the use of "synthesis gas", or "syngas", as the raw material from which liquid, and gaseous, hydrocarbons are catalytically condensed.
So generic is the term syngas, that many of the published technologies, especially those appearing in the patent literature, concerning the catalytic condensation of synthesis gas into various hydrocarbon fuels, don't even hint at where such syngas might come from.
There are a variety of sources, as you should by now, presuming you have followed our posts thus far, know.
Herein, from Australia, we present clear affirmation that we can, in fact, not only manufacture such valuable hydrocarbon synthesis gas from our abundant Coal, but, we can, as well, use Steam to modify and adjust the Hydrogen content, and thus the Hydrogen-Carbon Monoxide ratio, of that syngas, to make it more suitable for catalytic condensation into specific hydrocarbons.
Comment follows excerpts from the enclosed link to:
"United States Patent 4,526,903 - The Production of Synthesis Gas From Coal
Date: July, 1985
Inventor: Donald Cummings, Sydney
Assignee: Dut Party Limited, Australia
(Note: We are uncertain who the "Dut Party" might be. However, web-based sources suggest to us that it could well be, in fact, an international branch of, significantly, as it concerns Coal conversion science, the "Durban University of Technology", which is headquartered in South Africa, the home of SASOL - South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited.)
Abstract: The overall conversion of coal to synthesis gas by pressurized counter-current gasification is improved by steam reforming the methane values in the gas and heating the steam reformer by means of a fluidized bed combustor fueled by the coal fines which are too small to be employed in the gasification step.
Coal can be crushed to increase the proportion of fines and/or conditions for gasification and/or steam reforming varied so as to consume lump coal and fines in the desired ratio.
The product gas may be used for methanol synthesis.
A process ... wherein (any co-produced by-product) hydrogen sulphide values ... are (recovered) and used as supplementary fuel to heat the fluidised bed (and) wherein the fluidised bed contains an absorbent for sulphur containing components in the gases resulting from the combustion of said hydrogen sulphide containing gas.
(And) wherein supplementary fuel to heat the fluidised bed is provided from tar-containing liquid (and) an aqueous phenolic stream withdrawn as (by-products) from the coal gasification.
(And, a) process ... wherein gas containing hydrogen and oxides or carbon and produced by the gasification step is subjected to a methanol synthesis step.
A process ... wherein the hydrogen content and/or oxides of carbon content of gas recovered from the coal gasification step and containing methane values is increased by subjecting said gas to said steam reforming step and the reformed gas is thereafter subjected to said methanol synthesis step.
By means of this invention coal fines and fine low grade coal (which term includes lignite) may be used to provide the bulk of the fuel for providing the heat for the reformer. The process thereby eliminates or substantially eliminates the need to use part of the methane containing gas to fuel the reformer and thereby increases the amount of synthesis gas produced ... (as) compared to the conventional processes."
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We close our excerpts here, since the primary point we wished to make is confirmed:
Since Hydrogen is required for the complete conversion, through the generation of synthesis gas, of Coal's predominant content of Carbon into more valuable hydrocarbons - such as, as above, the nearly-precious "methanol", it is important to note that Hydrogen can be provided by the "steam reforming" of Coal, and/or Coal gasification products.
We can manufacture hydrocarbon substitutes, for anything we now derive from increasingly unattractive natural petroleum sources, out of our abundant Coal.
And, we don't need anything but Coal, and Steam, to accomplish such manufacture.