http://www.osti.gov/scitech/
You, especially those of you United States citizens resident in United States Coal Country, are being cheated.
All of us are being cheated.
And, your - - and your children's, and your grandchildren's - - children are being denied the opportunity for economic prosperity and complete and total security within the borders of the United States of America.
The establishment of a core industry capable of converting Coal into liquid hydrocarbon fuels results in the growth of industries and enterprises around that core of Coal conversion; with follow-on benefits of greatly-increased employment, the reduction of foreign debt, and consequently enhanced national security.
We could be, could for decades have been, completely self-sufficient in our supply of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels, and of the "petrochemicals" needed for the manufacture of plastics.
We could have kissed OPEC goodbye as soon as they started getting greedy.
Our United States government, via the United States Department of Energy, confirmed all of those facts, all of those benefits of Coal-to-Hydrocarbon conversion industry, more than three decades ago, though, of course, in much more genteel, but still pretty plain, words.
But, inexplicably, inexcusably, none of the information was broadcast and published in your news media; and, none of it became the topic of open political debate and discourse.
As we've documented for you numerous times, as, for just two examples, 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 EnvironmentalAssessment; EPA-600/8-80-002; 1980; Contract No. 68-02-2635; Prepared for: U. S. Environmental Protection Agency; Office of Research and Development; Washington, D.C. 20460; 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 | US EPA Recommends Coal Liquefaction as a Clean Alternative | Research & Development; concerning: "Clean Alternative Fuels: Fischer-Tropsch; United States Environmental Protection Agency; Transportation and Air Quality Transportation and Regional Programs Division; EPA420-F-00-036; March 2002; A Success Story (!) For the past 50 years, Fischer-Tropsch fuels have powered all of South Africa’s vehicles, from buses to trucks to taxicabs. The fuel is primarily supplied by Sasol, a world leader in Fischer-Tropsch technologies. Sasol’s South African facility produces more than 150,000 barrels of high quality fuel from domestic low-grade coal daily";
our United States government has known for more than three decades, that, for the past more than one half of a century, South Africa has been converting Coal into all forms of liquid hydrocarbon fuels that are not only cost-competitive with those same fuels made from imported petroleum, but cleaner, as well.
And, herein we see, that, in addition to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Department of Energy, as well, more than three decades ago, studied South Africa's industry of Coal liquefaction, and discovered, that, not only was Coal supplying any and all forms of liquid hydrocarbon fuels to the South African economy, other product streams were generated from the Coal conversion process, products which substituted perfectly for petroleum-based materials, and which were being used as such in new industries springing up around South Africa's Coal conversion facilities, for the manufacture of such things as high-volume plastics and fertilizers.
Our excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch will be very brief. As far as we have been able to determine, our government hasn't seen our source document to be of enough significance to have it digitized, and made available in an electronic form amenable to cutting and pasting.
We have, however, downloaded a copy of the file and will transmit it to the West Virginia Coal Association, should they wish to make it accessible on their web site.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"Foreign Coal Liquefaction Technology Survey and Assessment: SASOL - The Commercial Experience
Prepared for Chemical Technology Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Subcontract Number 62b-1383C
November 30, 1980
OSTI ID: 12195973; Report Number: ORNL/Sub--79/13837/4; DOE Contract: W-7405-ENG-26
Sponsoring Organization: United States Department of Energy
Work sponsored by the International Energy Technology Assessment Project, directed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (for) Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy
Summary: An effort has been made to sift through the numerous documents that have been published concerning the Sasol facilities in Sasolburg ·and Secunda, South Africa, and compile a report that will describe these facilities in some detail and in a logical fashion. The report is split into a section on Sasol One and a smaller orie covering Sasols Two and Three. The description of Sasol One is essentially a description of the commercial plant.
The second section describes what has been done in recent years, is being done and is planned for the near future to use the experience that has been gained by Sasol Ltd. since 1955 in new synthetic fuel facilities that address the energy problems of South Africa in the 1980's.
In each section the format is the same. The coal is followed from the mine through. the various process units to the products that are marketed by Sasol. Also described are some of the major ancillary units that are key to these facilities. These include steam raising, oxygen production and catalyst preparation. Mention is
also made of the other Sasol plants which, although not coal based, are integrated with the synthetic fuels facilities.
(Those "other Sasol plants", although they aren't "coal based", utilize other products of "the synthetic fuels facilities", which most definitely are "coal based". In other words, the "other .. plants" are still "coal-based", but indirectly so, through the use of byproducts from the Coal-based "synthetic fuels facilities".
In this introductory section mention is· made of the key role that Sasol plays in the entire South African energy scene and the catalyst that it has been in forming a diverse chemical industry ... .
As far back as 1927-the South African government had noted the country's heavy dependence on imports for much needed transportation fuels. This was when a White Paper had been published on oil-from-coal.
Here was a way to make use of the country's bountiful coal reserves ... thereby cutting dependence on foreign fuel sources.
(In other words, the South Africans woke up and got smart very nearly a century ago. Far past time someone plugged in our US Coal Country coffee maker, ain't it - especially since our USDOE told us all of this more than three decades ago?)
.Anglo Transvaal Consolidated Investment Ltd. did much of the pioneering work in this field. In 1935 they acquired the South African rights to the German F-T (Fischer-Tropsch) processes ... .
The government helped further interest in the fied by laying out the legislative frame work for- an oil-from-coal industry - the Liquid Fuel and Oil Act.of· 1947.
Thus started a venture which built a factory and an associated new town. These developed in such a. way that Sasol, as the company became known, was the hub of a coal-based industry which has grown to the point that it has the attention of the whole world. Sasolburg is now the center of the South African chemical industry and Sasol not only manufactures and markets directly fuels and chemical from coal, but it is a major raw material supplier to other industries around it's periphery and has itself, diversified into many energy related activities.
In order to give some idea of how Sasol has stimulated other industries a section of the company's prospectus offering shares to the public is quoted:
'The manufacture of a wide range ·of intermediary chemical products by Sasol One brought about the establishment of several satellite industries at Sasolburg resulting in it becoming the most important centre in the South African chemical industry.
Feed stocks such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene and styrene, of which Sasol One is the only manufacturer in the country, are supplied to these satellite industries.
AECI Limited has already established two large factories, Coalplex (in association with Sentrachem Limited) and Midland, at Sasolburg for the manufacture of plastics and other chemical products. These factories make use of a variety.of feed stocks acquired from Sasol One.
Karbochem (Proprietary) Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Sentrachem group, manufactures a wide range of products by processing feed stocks which are mainly supplied by Sasol One. Synthetic rubber, for example, is manufactured from styrene and butadiene produced by Sasol One.
Safripol (Proprietary) Limited, owned by Sentrachem Limited and Hoechst SA (Proprietary) Limited, uses the ethylene and propylene supplied by Sasol One for the manufacture of high-density polyethylene and polypropylene respectively for the plastics industry.
The manufacture of nitrogenous feed stocks such as sulphate of ammonia, ammonia, ammonium nitrate, limestone ammonium nitrate, nitric acid and sulphur by Sasol One resulted in the establishment of fertiliser factories at Sasolburg by Federale Kunsmis Limited and Omnia Fertilisers Limited.
In addition to the feed stocks which are supplied to the neighboring industries, Sasol One also provides utilities such as steam and fuel gas to almost all the industries established in Sasolburg.
In the foreseeable future the development of satellite industries which make use of chemical feed stocks of the Sasol group will still take place mainly at Sasolburg. Ethylene, which will be one of the most important feed stocks supplied by Sasol Two, will be transported to Sasolburg from Secunda by means of a gas pipeline which has almost been completed. The Coalplex facility ... is itself a coal based chemical complex where PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and other plastics are produced.
Over the three decades of its existence the Sasol group has grown from an oil-from-coal facility for producing liquid fuels ... to an, organization that now has three of these facilities, two coal mines, an olefins complex, a major portion of a·crude oil refinery and a gas pipeline. All of these are operated in a mutually compatible way that has made Sasol a true "energy company"."
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And, all of it - - liquid fuels, plastics, fertilizers, fuel gas, steam for power - - comes from Coal, in one integrated, connected "Coalplex facility" at and near the Coal mine mouths.
There is a lot more about the co-generation of liquid hydrocarbon fuels, plastics manufacturing raw materials and power, from Coal, as it's all being, and has been, practiced in that integrated facility, back in 1980, and right now, in South Africa, in the full document
But we'll close there so that we can remind you, that, as West Virginia University not long ago reported to the USDOE, as in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | WVU Says Oil From Coal Could Sustain Us For 1,000 Years | Research & Development; concerning: "Development of Continuous Solvent Extraction Processes For Coal Derived Carbon Products; December 31, 2009; Authors: Elliott Kennel, et. al.; Research Organization: West Virginia University; Sponsoring Organization: US Department of Energy; Contract Number: FC26-03NT41873";
we have enough Coal in the United States of America to do all of that, to establish "Coalplex" facilities in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the rest of US Coal Country, for more than the next 1,000 years.
And, we'll end with this, for whomever it might apply:
"A time comes when silence is betrayal." - Martin Luther King, Jr.; April 4, 1967; Riverside Church, NYC.