http://www.fossil.energy.gov/
Back in 2008, just as we first started confirming, through presentation of irrefutable document evidence to an apparently disinterested West Virginia newspaper editor, the stark reality of the fact that our abundant West Virginia and United States Coal reserves can be profitably converted, through long-known, established, efficient and commercially-practiced techniques, into quite literally anything the leadership of this nation continues to allow us all to be extorted by the inimical nations pf OPEC for the supply of, including Gasoline and Diesel fuel, the United States Department of Energy, to their credit, published that same fact, boldly, in a promotional brochure that, by our way of thinking, every Federal-level elected representative, from anywhere and everywhere in United States Coal Country, should have used their franking privileges to have delivered directly to the mail box of every registered voter in US Coal Country.
Before addressing the document we bring to you herein, we first remind you of a couple of others, somewhat similar in tone and compositional style, actually published by that almost archetypical representative of Big Oil, that beloved behemoth, ExxonMobil.
As seen in our reports of:
West Virginia Coal Association | ExxonMobil "Clean Gasoline from Coal" | Research & Development; "Methanol to Gasoline (MTG): Production of Clean Gasoline from Coal, So Advanced, Yet So Simple"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | ExxonMobil "Coal to Clean Gasoline" | Research & Development; "'Coal to Clean Gasoline'; Xinjin Zhao, Ron D. McGihon and Samuel A. Tabak; ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, USA, discuss ExxonMobil's methanol to gasoline technology for the production of clean gasoline from coal";
ExxonMobil once had the commendable corporate honesty and integrity, with perhaps some old-fashioned, and now in seemingly short supply, patriotism thrown in, to explain, in polished, corporate-quality glossy pieces of promotional and informational literature, that, yes, our abundant domestic United States Coal can, cleanly and efficiently, be converted into anything, quite literally anything, ExxonMobil's tankers are now coursing back and forth across the oceans to bring to us from those throbbing hearts of US-style peace and democracy, those staunch supporters of US causes around the world, the nations of OPEC.
And, as we indicated in our introductory comments, there were, at least at one time, some genuine patriots in the United States Department of Energy who apparently felt the same way, and tried to get the word out.
First, we remind you that the honest scientists and earnest bureaucrats at the USDOE haven't really been lax in their study and furthering of science related both to Coal conversion and to the utilization of the byproducts of our Coal use.
As seen, for just two examples, in our reports of:
West Virginia Coal Association | USDOE Calls Coal Conversion "The Wave of the Future" | Research & Development; concerning the USDOE document: "Coal Gasification: Direct Applications And Syntheses Of Chemicals and Fuels;1987; Report Number: DOE/ER-0326; OSTI ID: 766412; DOE Contract: AC01-85ER30076; 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. ... 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 its way to an economy built largely on the use of clean fluid fuels, with coal gasification as a primary component"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | USDOE Says CO2 is a 'Vast Natural Resource' | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,197,421 - Synthetic Carbonaceous Fuels and Feedstocks; 1980; Inventor: (USDOE Brookhaven, NY, National Laboratory Scientist) Meyer Steinberg; Assignee: The United States of America; Abstract: This invention relates to the use of a three compartment electrolytic cell in the production of synthetic carbonaceous fuels and chemical feedstocks such as gasoline, methane and methanol by electrolyzing an aqueous sodium carbonate/bicarbonate solution, obtained from scrubbing atmospheric carbon dioxide";
the United States Department of Energy has been trying to tell us for at least three decades that both Coal and Carbon Dioxide can be efficiently converted into clean, liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels.
Now, as an aside, we have had now at least two West Virginia-based commercial journalists actually tell us that our reports, concerning the facts that Coal and Carbon Dioxide can be so efficiently converted into such seemingly-needful things as "gasoline, methanol and methane" aren't, or wouldn't, be of interest to their readers in West Virginia, since most of the developments we document aren't taking place in West Virginia.
The same is presumably true of the Pennsylvania journalists we copy in, though they haven't been bald enough to tell us so.
In other words, you common, uneducated, unenlightened West Virginia and Pennsylvania Coal miners aren't interested in developments concerning Coal and Carbon Dioxide taking place more than a few miles away from your kitchen table, developments that would, if implemented anywhere in the United States of America, help to secure your jobs, your children's futures, and the military and economic future of the nation where you were born, the nation you call home, the United States of America.
Your Coal Country journalists believe, as we interpret it, by extension, that you Coal Country citizens, whether Coal miners or not, whether you've had to send any of your children in uniform off to fight in the Iraq or Afghanistan oil wars or not, aren't United States patriots.
That, folks, is how your Coal Country journalists perceive you:
If the news ain't about the start of deer season or local high school sports, then your intellects, your interests and your grasp of issues aren't sufficient enough to understand, that, if, as seen in:
West Virginia Coal Association | US EPA Confirms Coal Liquids Cheaper Than Petroleum | Research & Development; concerning: "Sasol: South Africa's Oil From Coal Story - - Background For Environmental Assessment; EPA-600/8-80-002; Prepared for: U. S. Environmental Protection Agency; Abstract: The report describes the world's only oil-from-coal plant, known as SASOL, operated by South Africa since 1955. When almost 7 billion worth of expansion is completed in the early 1980s, three SASOL plants will produce a total of 112,000 barrels of oil per day, or about half of South Africa's needs. Production costs average $17 per barrel, well below the 1979 OPEC price of more than $20 per barrel"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Iceland, August 2012, CO2 to Gasoline and Diesel | Research & Development; concerning, in part: "US Patent Application 20120201717 - Process and System for Producing Liquid Fuel from CO2 and Water; 2012; Assignee: CRI, Iceland; Abstract: A process and system for producing high octane fuel from carbon dioxide and water is disclosed. The feedstock for the production line is industrial carbon dioxide and water, which may be of lower quality. The end product can be high octane gasoline, high cetane diesel or other liquid hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional combustion engines or hydrocarbons suitable for further industrial processing or commercial use";
the United States Environmental Protection Agency confirms that Gasoline can be made from Coal, somewhere in the world, cheaper than it can be made from natural petroleum and, that, people elsewhere in the world have figured out how to convert the CO2 that comes out of your Coal-fired power plant smoke stacks into "high octane gasoline" and Diesel fuel, you, you followers of Mountaineer and Pittsburgh Steeler football, won't be bright enough or interested enough to figure out how that applies, or could apply, to your Coal Country jobs, your Coal Country children's futures, or the economic and military security of the nation you call home.
It is, in sum, arrogance.
Your Coal Country journalists are bright enough to understand and know it all.
But:
You - you miners of Coal, you diggers of ditches, you twisters of wrenches, you slingers of hash, you keepers of law and order - are not.
So, why bother to make any attempt to educate and inform?
That is, folks, sadly the summary gist of what little feedback from Coal Country journalists we have received.
Hey, for our part, we'll keep at it as long as circumstances allow. And, maybe, just maybe, somehow, someway, someday, your Coal Country news media will trip over the fact, as confirmed herein yet again by no less than the United States Department of Energy, that, yes, by golly, Coal can be profitably converted into all sorts of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels, and, genuinely enlightened people in other parts of the world are doing exactly that.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"US Department of Energy; Office of Fossil Energy; National Energy Technology Laboratory
'Coal-to-Liquids Technology; Clean Liquid Fuels from Coal
(Note, that, due to unreliability of links, a complete copy of the file itself has been downloaded, and will be separately transmitted to the West Virginia Coal Association.)
COAL — NOT AN ORDINARY ROCK: Coal is a solid fossil fuel with a high carbon content but a low hydrogen content, typically no more than 5–6 percent of the total weight of coal. On a molecular level, it consists of long chains of mostly aromatic hydrocarbon structures. It is mostly associated with the generation of electric power or as a feedstock in the production of steel.
However, this versatile, solid rock can be broken down into simple molecules and put back together into many different, useful forms.
Technologies exist today to break down coal into the simple molecules of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, and then to combine these molecules to form many useful products such as liquid transportation fuels, natural gas, and chemical feedstocks that are used to produce common household products such as tape and film. Today, these products are manufactured using fuels and chemicals produced from petroleum
and natural gas.
However, the United States has the opportunity to more fully utilize its abundant coal resource as a flexible feedstock to produce liquid fuels and chemicals that address the country’s energy and economic needs through Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) technology.
DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL — A CONTINUING AND GROWING CONCERN: America’s economic well-being is heavily dependent upon the availability of secure and affordable transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel. The United States is becoming increasingly reliant on imported oil, some of which comes from potentially unstable regions of the world, while at the same time our domestic crude oil production has decreased. There also is growing global competition for petroleum as China and India continue theireconomic expansion. Finally, global energy delivery supply lines are getting longer, and exposure of these important lines to acts of terrorism will become more difficult to manage with time.
Acknowledging these factors, there is a growing consensus on the need to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil, and to consider a portfolio approach of producing gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from coal ... .
The United States has an abundance of coal - approximately a 250-year supply at today’s production rates.
Although the Middle East has the majority of proven oil reserves, the United States, Russia, China, India, and Australia control the largest coal reserves.
CTL TECHNOLOGY BASICS: Approximately two barrels of clean diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel can be produced from a ton of coal.
(The above is, in fact, a hugely conservative error. As seen, for only one example, in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Consol Says 1 Ton of Coal = 4+ Barrels of Gasoline | Research & Development; concerning: "Zinc halide hydrocracking process for distillate fuels from coal. Annual technical progress report, February 1, 1977--January 31, 1978; Report Number: FE-1743-49; DOE Contract: EX-76-C-01-1743; OSTI: 6609731; 1978; Research Organization: Conoco Coal Development Co., Library, PA (USA).
Yields per ton of MAF coal were up to 4.3 bbls gasoline and 1.0 bbl of higher boiling distillate in one pass. The raw gasoline had Research Octane Numbers of 90.6 to 92.3 and low nitrogen and sulfur. Single runs showed that other subbituminous coals and bituminous coal could be successfully converted with the process";
depending on the Coal conversion process selected, yields can be much, much higher. Further, as seen for only one out of many examples in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Consol Hydrogasifies CoalTL Residues | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,248,605 - Gasification of Coal Liquefaction Residues; 1981; Assignee: Conoco, Inc.; Abstract: A method for gasifying the bottoms fraction from a coal liquefaction process";
technologies have been developed to efficiently extract and convert the carbon remaining in residues from an initial Coal conversion process.)
There are three processes that can produce these fuels from coal: Indirect liquefaction, which breaks down the coal into simple molecules that are then combined to form liquid fuels;
Direct liquefaction, which breaks down coal to the correct molecule size to form liquid fuels; and
Hybrid concept, which incorporates technologies from both direct and indirect liquefaction processes.
Additionally, all three processes can efficiently integrate carbon capture and storage technologies to mitigate global warming concerns.
(Nuts to the "storage" part of that. If we can "capture" the CO2, then, as seen alternatively in:
West Virginia Coal Association | August 2011, CO2-to-Gasoline US Patent Awarded | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,989,507 - Production of Fuel Materials Utilizing Waste Carbon Dioxide; 2011; Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Germany; Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method for utilizing CO2 waste comprising recovering carbon dioxide from an industrial process that produces a waste stream comprising carbon dioxide in an amount greater than an amount of carbon dioxide present in starting materials for the industrial process. The method further includes producing hydrogen using a renewable energy resource and producing a hydrocarbon material utilizing the produced hydrogen and the recovered carbon dioxide";
we should be able to do something a little more constructive and productive with it.)
In the indirect liquefaction process, coal first is gasified with oxygen and steam to produce synthesis gas: a mixture of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and other compounds that is cleaned of impurities. The cleaned synthesis gas is sent to a water-gas shift reactor where the ratio of carbon monoxide-to-hydrogen is adjusted and optimized. The shifted gas then is fed to the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) reactors where the gas is converted to liquid fuels.
(Alternatively, Hydrogen from an external source can be added, which cuts back on co-production of Carbon Dioxide during the "water-gas shift" process. We've reported on those trade-offs previously, and will address them again in future reports.)
The liquid fuels have a high cetane value (a measure of diesel fuel quality), and contain zero sulfur and essentially zero aromatic compounds. The process yields mostly diesel and jet fuels, which can be used in vehicles and airplanes, or blended into petroleum-derived diesel and jet fuels and subsequently used.
An alternative to the indirect liquefaction process is direct liquefaction, which converts coal at high temperature and pressure, in the presence of hydrogen and catalyst, to liquid fuels. This process results in more of, and a higher octane gasoline (measure of gasoline quality) compared to the indirect process. However, in order to meet current fuel quality requirements, some additional processing in a traditional
oil refinery may be required.
(So does crude petroleum, and the products derived from it, we might add.)
Finally, a hybrid process concept combines technologies from both the indirect and direct liquefaction processes.
There are two key features of this hybrid process: 1) the hydrogen required for the direct process can be manufactured in the indirect process; and 2) the hybrid process yields both a high-quality diesel fuel from the indirect process and a high quality gasoline from the direct process.
BENEFITS OF CTL TECHNOLOGY: Reduce growing dependence on imported crude oil by using ample domestic coal reserves.
CTL technology has been demonstrated for more than 50 years.
(As in our above citation of our earlier report concerning: "'Sasol: South Africa's Oil From Coal Story - - Background For Environmental Assessment'; EPA-600/8-80-002; Prepared for: U. S. Environmental Protection Agency".)
CTL fuels can be zero-sulfur, zero aromatic fuels, and can be used in existing engines.
CTL fuels can be distributed using the existing crude oil and product infrastructure.
Aside from liquid transportation fuels, CTL plants also can produce power and chemical feedstocks in
“poly-generation” plants.
(One example of such "poly-generation" technology can be seen in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Germany Coal to Electricity, Methanol and Vinyl Acetate | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,663,931 - Power Generating Station with and Integrated Coal Gasification Plant; 1987; Assignee: Kraftwerk Union, AG, (Germany); Abstract: Power generating plant with an integrated coal gasification plant, with a heat exchanger and gas purification plant connected to the coal gasifier, with a gas turbine and steam power generating plant part connected to the heat exchanger and gas purification plant, and with a methanol synthesis plant. The methanol generated in the methanol synthesis plant as well as the synthesis exhaust gas of the methanol synthesis can be fed, at least partially, to a further subplant for a second chemical manufacturing process and the excess synthesis exhaust gas from the methanol synthesis and the exhaust from this further subplant, to the combustion chamber of the gas turbine power generating plant part".)
CTL plants and hydrogen from coal plants share many of the same technologies; therefore if a transition to a hydrogen economy occurs, investment in CTL plants will not result in stranded investments since the plants can be converted to produce hydrogen.
Unique jet fuel qualities are of particular interest to the United States Air Force.
(NOTE the following:)
CTL fuels can be competitive with crude oil at $50/bbl."
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We're going to close our excerpts right there, so that we can document the fact, that, as seen in:
the average world price of crude petroleum, just yesterday, February 6, 2013, stood at $96.85 per barrel. The price in one year is expected to be $111 per barrel.
According to our own United States Department of Energy, liquid fuels made from Coal, using known and currently, in other parts of the world, practiced industrial technologies, can be "competitive with crude oil" when the price of that "crude oil" is only "$50" per barrel.
Why - - we are compelled to ask, the question is begged - - since our own United States Government has established the fact that Coal-derived liquid fuels are cost-competitive with petroleum-derived liquid fuels when the cost of crude petroleum is half, soon to be less than half, what it is right now, have we not yet started converting our abundant domestic Coal into those liquid hydrocarbons, hydrocarbons we are now squandering our foreign exchange and national wealth to purchase, now, from parts of the world that continue to demand extraordinary, indirect and unaccounted-for, expenditures from our national US Defense budget and, through underemployment and unemployment, from our internal domestic US economy?
Again:
Why have we not yet embarked on a jobs-creating, security-enhancing, wealth-building program of converting our abundant domestic US Coal into direct, and, according herein to the USDOE, quite profitable replacements for anything and everything we now pay fealty to OPEC to keep ourselves supplied with in the here and now?
That, we insist, is a question, and Coal liquefaction is an issue, that applies not just to the outlanders in the rest of the United States of America, or anywhere in the world where they might already be converting Coal into liquid hydrocarbon fuels or recycling Carbon Dioxide into the same sort of things, but to each and every individual citizen of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the rest of the states in United States Coal Country, no matter what our apparently myopic Coal Country journalists might think.