Shenhua Coal to Liquids Plant - Hydrocarbons Technology
We've provided you with quite a few reports concerning China's plans for, and achievements in, establishing an extensive national industry focused on, and dedicated to, the conversion of her abundant reserves of Coal into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels, and into various chemical manufacturing raw materials.
And, as seen in our report of:
China Makes "Huge Profits" from Coal Liquefaction | Research & Development; "China Coal Producer Reaps Huge Profits From CTL Project; Shenhua Group, China's largest coal producer, has made huge profits from its pilot coal-to-liquid (CTL) project in north China in the first three months of this year, a company executive saidSaturday";
it seems to be working out pretty well for them; a fact confirmed by West Virginia University, who tell us in:
West Virginia Coal Association | WVU and China Coal to $24 per Barrel Oil | Research & Development; "'Coal to Clean Fuel; The Shenua Investment in Direct Coal Liquefaction'; Natural Resource Analysis Center; West Virginia University; 3rd US-China Clean Energy Workshop; Morgantown, WV; October 18-19, 2004";
that, the costs of producing Oil, from Coal, in China, are estimated to be right around $24 per barrel.
China, as we've documented in other reports, such as, for just one example:
West Virginia Coal Association | GE Converts China Coal to Methanol | Research & Development; concerning the news release: "'One of the World’s Largest Coal-to-Olefins Gasification Units Starts Up in China'; BEIJING, CHINA—August 12, 2010—The gasification unit at one of the world’s largest coal-to-olefins projects successfully started up at the China Shenhua Coal to Liquid and Chemical Co. Ltd.’s project in Baotou, Inner Mongolia (Shenhua Baotou Coal to Olefins project). The gasification unit uses advanced coal gasification technology provided by GE (NYSE:GE). The gasification technology converts coal into a synthesis gas (or syngas). Syngas can then be used to produce methanol, which will be transformed into olefins, a building block for producing polyethylene and polypropylene"
is enjoying the participation, help and assistance of some major US corporations in her pursuit of a hydrocarbon self-sufficiency founded on Coal.
More than that, she is benefiting from the direct help and assistance of key United States Coal Country public institutions of higher learning, and, from our United States tax dollars, via the direct help and assistance being afforded China by a key Department of our own Federal Government.
As disclosed, in sort of an offhand way, via excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
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Shenhua Coal to Liquids Plant, China
Key Data:
- Order Year: 2002
- Construction Started: 2003
- Project Type: New Coal to Liquids Plant
- Location: China, Inner Mongolia
- Estimated Investment: > $10 bn
- Completion First Phase: 2009. Second Phase: 2010
- Sponsors: Shenhua Group Corporation Ltd., ... US DOE, University of West Virginia
For an energy- and chemical-hungry economy such as China, the problem of continuing supplies of liquid fuels and chemical feedstocks is moot. One of the world’s largely untapped hydrocarbon reserves – and one that China has in abundance, with proven reserves of over a trillion tons (Ministry of Land and Resources figure) – is coal.
The interest in coal gasification technology, which was first developed more than 100 years ago, has now increased in several coal-rich countries, including China. The Chinese Government is pursuing coal to liquids (CTL) projects as part of a national energy policy costing more than $10bn.
The two companies driving the technology in China are Shenhua Group Corporation Ltd and Ningxia Coal Industry Co Ltd (Ningmei). Shenhua alone has coal reserves of more than 220bn tons and a production capacity of 60m tons per year.
CTL technology produces an enormous amount of CO2 and the contention has been that the coal should be used to produce electricity, which will allow higher efficiency and the use of clean coal technology, or else the CTL must be developed in conjunction with carbon sequestration projects. In addition CTL is a water-hungry process and this natural resource may also become crucial.
The Shenhua Group Corporation, which is one of the world’s largest coal companies, began to construct the world’s first commercial direct coal liquefaction plant, located in Inner Mongolia (80 miles south of Baotau at Majata) in 2003, at a cost of $3.2bn (this is an area with huge coal fields). China Shenhua Coal Liquefaction Co Ltd (CSCLCL) is the operating company for the plant.
The first phase of the facility opened in July 2009 and employ US-developed technology from Headwaters Inc and Hydrocarbon Technologies Inc (HTI) in conjunction with West Virginia University and the US Department of Energy.(Concerning the involvement, as above, of "Hydrocarbon Technologies" see, for one example, our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Morgantown & Pittsburgh "Optimize" China CoalTL | Research & Development; concerning: Direct Liquefaction Proof-Of-Concept Program; December, 1999; Authors: A. Comoli, T. Lee, J. Hu, et. al; Report Number: DE--AC22-92PC92148--04; DOE Contract: AC22-92PC92148; Organization: Morgantown, WV, and Pittsburgh, PA, Federal Energy Technology Centers; Abstract: This report presents the results of the bench-scale work ... conducted under the DOE Proof-of-Concept Option Program indirect coal liquefaction at Hydrocarbon Technologies Inc. in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Bench Run PB-09 was conducted using two types of Chinese coal, Shenhua No.2 and Shenhua No.3, and had several goals. One goal was to study the liquefaction performance of Shenhua No.2 and Shenhua No.3 with respect to coal conversion and distillate production".)The facility will have three reactor trains when the second phase is completed in 2010 and will be able to produce 6m tons of oil products per year.
The first train, which entered trial production in July 2009, converts 3.45m tons of coal into a million tons of oil products (22,000bbl per day of liquid fuel). Beijing plans to have CTL capacity approaching 50m tons by 2020 and Inner Mongolia plans to turn half of its coal output into liquid fuel or chemicals by 2010, which will be around 135m tons – or about 40% of Australia’s annual coal output.
Figures have suggested that it costs $67-82 a barrel to produce CTL fuel (figures from SASOL). But with prices of Brent crude approaching $150 per barrel at times in 2008, these figures begin to make economic sense.
(Begin to make "economic sense" to anyone in the US? And, actually, as in the WVU report cited in our introductory comments, "Coal to Clean Fuel; The Shenua Investment in Direct Coal Liquefaction", the cost of liquid hydrocarbon fuels derived from Coal might be a lot less than "$67-82 a barrel".)
Coal to chemicals: In May 2008 Siemens Energy supplied the first two of an order of five coal gasifiers to Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co Ltd (SNCG). Each of these has a thermal capacity of 500 megawatts and are used for the Ningxia coal-to-polypropylene (NCPP) plant in Ningxia Province in north-west China.
The new plant, with its five gasifiers, has an hourly production capacity of about 540,000 cubic metres of syngas, which is converted in a series of downstream processes to polypropylene plastic. The Siemens coal gasifiers are 18m long, with an inside diameter of 3m and a weight of 220t.
The initial trial of this facility for 300 hours, was successfully completed in December 2008. Completion of the second trial in July 2009 saw the launch of the facility.
They are capable of gasifying up to 2,000t of coal daily. The gasification process converts hard coal, lignite, biomass, petcoke and refinery residues to syngas, and environmental pollutants such as sulphur and carbon dioxide are removed and sequestrated or stored.
(Actually, concerning the above comment about "carbon dioxide" being "sequestered or stored", since "Siemens Energy" is involved, we remind you, that, as seen in our report of:
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; Inventor: Bruce Rising, Florida; 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 (and) further includes producing hydrogen using a renewable energy resource and producing a hydrocarbon material utilizing the produced hydrogen and the recovered carbon dioxide. Claims: A process 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; producing hydrogen using a renewable energy resource; and producing methane utilizing the produced hydrogen and the recovered carbon dioxide.
The process ... further comprising using electricity produced from the renewable energy resource to reduce an amount of carbon dioxide to a first amount of carbon monoxide and oxygen. (And) wherein at least one of the first amount or the second amount of the carbon monoxide and the produced hydrogen are converted to methanol via a catalytic process. The present invention relates to a method and system for producing fuel materials from waste carbon dioxide using renewable resources, and more particularly to a method and system for producing fuel materials from carbon dioxide recovered from a waste stream of an industrial process and hydrogen produced using renewable energy resources";
they might actually be implementing some more profitable options for the disposition of any byproduct Carbon Dioxide than wasteful sequestration or storage.)
The syngas can then be used for eco-friendly power generation in integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants or as chemical industry feedstock (fuels or polymers)."
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Folks, in sum:
China, our one great remaining economic and ideological competitor in this world, is developing a domestic liquid hydrocarbon fuel self-sufficiency based on the conversion of Coal into hydrocarbons, with help from "West Virginia University and the US Department of Energy".Your tax money is being spent to help your international rivals develop technology that will, by employing your own most abundant fossil resource, free those rivals from doing what you have to do every single day:
Pay exorbitant amounts of your hard-earned wages to the unfriendly nations OPEC just so that you can drive your car back and forth to work - - every single day.
And, you have not been told one single word about any of that by your Coal Country press.
And, it's far, far past time you began demanding of that Coal Country press, and of your US Government, who seem happy to use the tax money you pay them to help your competitors get a leg up in the Coal conversion biz, an answer to one single question:
Why?