Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #766412
Unfortunately, concerning the headline we selected for this dispatch, a large group of knowledgeable and accomplished scientists, assembled by our United States Department of Energy to assess the technologies and economies of indirectly, through gasification, converting our abundant domestic Coal into a full range of hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals, said, all the way back in 1987, that such Coal conversion technology was so advanced and so effective, and the economic reasons for doing it were so compelling, that it would become "the wave of the future", sweeping us all up in a tsunami of domestic hydrocarbon self-sufficiency by, they opined, 2010.
It's now 2012. Are your feet even wet? Ours neither.
And, it kind of makes you wonder why.
We'll have some of our typical, and we're certain by now tiresome, comments concerning that, following our extremely brief, relative to the extent of the work we address herein, excerpts from the initial and following links to the 506-page tome:
23 Mb View Document or Access Individual Pages - DOI: 10.2172/766412
"COAL GASIFICATION: DIRECT APPLICATIONS AND SYNTHESES OF CHEMICALS AND FUELS
Publication Date: June 1, 1987
Authors: S.S. Penner, et. al.
(There are fully eleven named authors, including Penner. They hail from the University of California, Mobil Oil Corporation, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chicago's Gas Research Institute, and the good ole' University of Pittsburgh, among others. We have previously cited many of them individually in our prior reports on specific aspects of Coal conversion technology. They call themselves "The DOE Working Group for an Assessment of Coal-Gasification Research Needs", or, for short, "COGARN".)
Report Number: DOE/ER-0326; OSTI ID: 766412; DOE Contract: AC01-85ER30076
Available on Web: February, 2008
Abstract and Summary: The DOE Working Group for an Assessment of Coal-Gasification Research
Needs (COGARN - coal gasification advanced research needs) has reviewed and evaluated U.S. programs dealing with coal gasification for a variety of applications. Cost evaluations and environmental-impact assessments formed important components of the deliberations.
We have examined in some depth each of the following technologies: coal gasification for electricity generation in combined-cycle systems, coal gasification for the production of synthetic natural gas, coal gasifiers for direct electricity generation in fuel cells, and coal gasification for the production of synthesis gas as a first step in the manufacture of a wide variety of chemicals and fuels.
Both catalytic and non-catalytic conversion processes were considered. In addition, we have constructed an orderly, long-range research agenda on coal science, pyrolysis, and partial combustion in order to support applied research and development relating to coal gasification over the long term.
The COGARN studies were performed in order to provide an independent assessment of research needs in fuel utilization that involves coal gasification as the dominant or an important component (and, the) research recommendations of COGARN are summarized in this publication.
The use of Synthesis Gas for fuels and chemicals is the wave of the future.
By the year 2010, this country (yes, they do mean the USA) will be well on it's way to an economy built largely on the use of clean fluid fuels, with coal gasification as a primary component.
The acid-rain problem and-transportation-fuel shortages may be solved by the use of SG (Coal-derived Synthesis Gas).
(And, concerning any Carbon Dioxide "problem":)
CO2 (is) useful in ... polymer production (and) is the intermediate in the commercial synthesis of methanol using Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst. (Advances in) synthesis may lead to processes with reduced CO to H2 ratios, with CO2 replacing large amounts of CO."
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As you can guess, at 506 pages, there is quite a lot more to it; all more or less reinforcing the assembled experts' collective conclusion that Coal conversion, through initial gasification, into any and all sorts of needed hydrocarbons, and some other things as well, was so technically and economically advantageous, and the advantages were so obvious, back in 1987, that wide adoption and implementation of Coal gasification technology, especially for the synthesis of chemicals and for the synthesis of gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons, would be inevitable and accelerative; especially since, as they took pains to note, catalysts exist which enable the direct hydrogenation of byproduct Carbon Dioxide into, among other things but primarily, Methanol.
As we've documented, as for one instance in:
Conoco Converts CO2 to Methanol and Dimethyl Ether | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 6,664,207 - Catalyst for Converting Carbon Dioxide to Oxygenates; 2003; Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company; Abstract: A catalyst and process for converting carbon dioxide into oxygenates. The catalyst comprises copper, zinc, aluminum, gallium, and a solid acid. Claims: A catalyst composition comprising: copper; zinc; aluminum; gallium; and a solid acid (wherein) said solid acid (comprises) a zeolite (specified as) ZSM-5. A catalyst composition for converting carbon dioxide to methanol and dimethyl ether";
work on the refinement of "Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst", i.e., "copper; zinc; aluminum ... catalyst composition"s for the conversion of "carbon dioxide to methanol" continued over the next decade and a half; not that we Coal Country peons have been enlightened about any of it.
That, aside from the fact, that, as seen for just one example in:
USDOE CO2 + H2O = Hydrocarbon Syngas | Research & Development; concerning: "Co-Electrolysis of H2O and CO2 for Syngas Production; 2006; US Department of Energy; (A) research project is underway at the Idaho National Laboratory to investigate the feasibility of producing syngas by simultaneously electrolyzing steam and carbon dioxide ... . The syngas can then be used for synthetic fuel production";
some other intriguing methods of generating "Synthesis Gas for fuels and chemicals" and, "syngas ... for synthetic fuel production", starting with CO2, have also been developed.
And, as seen for one example in:
Conoco 2011 Coal + CO2 + H2O + O2 = Syngas | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,959,829 - Gasification System and Process; 2011; Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company; Abstract: A system and process for gasifying carbonaceous feedstock ... (wherein) solid carbonaceous material is partially combusted, then pyrolyzed along with a first slurry stream comprising carbonaceous material in two separate reactor sections, thereby producing mixture products comprising synthesis gas. (And) wherein said carrier liquid is ... Carbon Dioxide (and) wherein said particulate carbonaceous material is ... coal";
the technologies of "coal gasification for the production of synthesis gas" keep getting better, and more intriguing, as well.
So, now that it's 2012, and, back in "the year 2010", we were supposed to have found our "country ... well on it's way to an economy built largely on the use of clean fluid fuels, with coal gasification as a primary component", we've gotta ask:
What, since 1987, when our subject report was published, has happened with the "orderly, long-range research agenda on coal science, pyrolysis, and partial combustion in order to support applied research and development relating to coal gasification over the long term" this elite group of Coal, and Carbon Dioxide, conversion scientists herein devised and promoted?
The "long term" has come and gone; and, it seems far, far past time we OPEC-beleaguered US citizens, especially those of us EPA-battered US citizens resident in US Coal Country, got an answer, a full and thorough and honest and open answer, to that question.