http://www.biology.duke.edu/jackson/ep2012.pdf
We open with an initial excerpt taken from the document we enclose, via the above link, in this dispatch:
"In the past five years,China has quickly built an industry of coal-based methanol and dimethylether (DME)
that is competitive in price with petroleum-based fuels. Methanol fuels offer many advantages, including a high octane rating and cleaner-burning properties than gasoline."
To paraphrase: China has built an industry that makes their own liquid transportation fuels, at a cost that is competitive with imported oil, out of their domestic Coal.
The "methanol" they make out of Coal, as we have many times documented, can be converted into Gasoline, if wanted, via, for just one example, the ExxonMobil MTG(r) process.
The "dimethylether (DME)" can be made to serve as a Diesel fuel, or, like Methanol, be utilized in the synthesis of other hydrocarbons.
See:
Methanol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "(In) the early 1970s, a methanol to gasoline process was developed by Mobil for producing gasoline ready for use in vehicles. Other chemical derivatives of methanol include dimethyl ether which ... can be used as a diesel replacement for transportation fuel".
And, very recent report of those plain facts comes to us from a respected and independent institution of higher learning.
The nature of the link we enclose to that report leads us to suspect that it will not long remain available; but, should the link soon fail to function, we have downloaded a copy of the file and can transmit it to the West Virginia Coal Association, in the now unlikely event any Coal Country journalists will be motivated enough to get off their dead cans and start doing what's right for their Coal Country readership and for the entire United States of America, and start researching, and reporting on, the Truth.
Comment is inserted within and appended to excerpts from:
"China’s Growing Methanol Economy and Its Implications for Energy and the Environment
Chi-Jen Yang (and) Robert B.Jackson; Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
December, 2011
Abstract: For more than a decade,Nobel laureate George Olah and coworkers have advocated the Methanol
Economy - replacing petroleum-based fuels and chemicals with methanol and methanol-derivatives - as a path to sustainable development. A first step to this vision appears to be occurring in China. In the past five years, China has quickly built an industry of coal-based methanol and dimethyl ether (DME) that is competitive in price with petroleum-based fuels.
Methanol fuels offer many advantages, including a high octane rating and cleaner-burning properties than gasoline. Methanol also has some disadvantages. A coal-based Methanol Economy could enhance water shortages in China, increase net carbon dioxide emissions,and add volatility to regional and global coal prices. China’s rapidly expanding Methanol Economy provides an interesting experiment for what could happen elsewhere if methanol is widely adopted, as proposed by Olah and researchers before him.
(We'll interrupt to dispense with a few things. First, there seems no sense in raising the issue of "water shortages" when we're talking about converting Coal into liquid hydrocarbons in the heart of US Coal Country along the banks of the Ohio River and it's many large tributaries. Second, there is no reason for Coal conversion to "increase net carbon dioxide emissions", except, that, with a new abundance of affordable liquid hydrocarbon transportation fuels, people might be motivated to drive more than they do now. But, since these Duke scientists were kind enough to invoke the spirit of Nobel Laureate George Olah, we remind you, that, as seen in:
Iceland Methanol from CO2 in 2010 | Research & Development; "CRI breaks ground for the first CO2 to Renewable Methanol Industrial Scale Plant in the World: Carbon Recycling International (CRI) captures carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and converts carbon dioxide into clean Renewable Methanol (RM) fuel. The capture of carbon dioxide results in a net reduction of carbon dioxide from power generation. It is a cost effective method (for) sustainable production of renewable fuel. RM fuel can be utilized in existing automobiles and distributed by the current gasoline stations. The ground-breaking of the George Olah Plant took place on October 17 2009 in Svartsengi, Iceland. CRI will construct an Industrial Scale Plant to capture carbon dioxide from emissions and produce Renewable Methanol (RM) which can be used to power existing automobiles without requiring new gasoline station infrastructure";
they are, in Iceland, using the principles expounded by George Olah to convert Carbon Dioxide, "from industrial emissions", into the same things China is making from Coal.
We could do the same thing, while we keep burning our Coal in the production of the most efficient and most affordable electricity in the world.)
China has abundant coal resources but scarce oil ... . Adapting to such limitations, it has developed a chemical industry that relies primarily on coal as a feedstock.
In recent years, the industry has experienced rapid growth, most notably in the production of both methanol and dimethyl ether(DME). In 2009, (more than) 75% of methanol in China was made from coal ... .
The rapid expansion of methanol and DME as fuels in China appears to fit Nobel Laureate George Olah’s vision of a Methanol Economy ... .
As Olah suggested, methanol and DME fit well within most existing energy infrastructure. Methanol can be
used in today’s internal combustion engines ... . The Methanol Economy could therefore, in principle, be a relatively feasible and affordable path towards replacing oil.
The development of a Methanol Economy in China has profound economic and environmental implications.
Coal-based methanol production could provide China with a domestic alternative to imported oil and reduce conventional automotive emissions.
(And) according to Olah’s vision, the Methanol Economy could contribute to a sustainable future where carbon-neutral methanol is produced from ... recycled carbon dioxide(CO2).
However, the availability of excess capacity alone cannot provide a sufficient safeguard against disruption of oil supplies unless the capacities for coal mining and transport expand accordingly.
Supplementing petroleum-based fuels with coal-based methanol is not only technically feasible but apparently affordable.
A buildup in methanol and DME production capacities would provide China with a readily available alternative to petroleum-based fuels and chemicals ... .
China’s Methanol Economy is too big to ignore.
----------------------
There is more, but, that seems a good place to conclude.
Astute researchers from a respected university say that replacing "petroleum-based fuels with coal-based" fuels is "technically feasible" and "affordable".
Folks: It is more than affordable.
Duke seems to have performed their analyses on a straight-cost basis. That is, if we make liquid fuels out of Coal, they won't cost us much, if any, more to use than petroleum-based fuels.
Left out of the picture is the avoided costs of imported petroleum to the economy as a whole; that is, of the military expense of protecting OPEC shipping lanes, of supporting jobless workers who could be digging Coal or working in support industries, of lost domestic tax revenues that could be building better roads and schools - and thus employing more US workers.
There seems little doubt:
If the costs of Coal-based fuels are at least comparable to petroleum-based fuels, then we, as a nation, will save vast, truly vast, sums of money by switching to them.
We should now vigorously start slicing through all of the Baloney Sandwiches tossed in our way, and get down to it.
And since, as indicated in the Duke University report, and as can be learned via:
West Virginia Coal Association | CO2 to Alcohol and Diesel Fuel | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 8,212,088 - Efficient and Selective Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol, Dimethyl Ether and Derived Products; 2012; Inventors: George Olah and G.K. Surya Prakash; Assignee: University of Southern California; Abstract: An efficient and environmentally beneficial method of recycling and producing methanol from varied sources of carbon dioxide including flue gases of fossil fuel burning powerplants, industrial exhaust gases or the atmosphere itself. Converting carbon dioxide by chemical or electrochemical reduction secondary treatment to produce essentially methanol, dimethyl ether and derived products";
we can efficiently convert Carbon Dioxide into Methanol and Dimethyl Ether, as well, while we continue to generate the most affordable electricity in the world by combusting our abundant Coal, there is nothing, nothing but willful ignorance and deliberately-fostered lies and illusions, standing between the United States of America and energy independence, and an improving environment, founded on the full and complete utilization of our most abundant domestic natural resource:
Coal.
