United States Patent: 3838993
 
We have documented, and, because of the importance we instinctively feel should be ascribed to the concept, will continue to document, the fact that Hydrogen-rich gasses, such as Methane, and other hydrocarbon products, can be generated via the Steam-gasification of Coal.
 
The concept is important, since Coal is composed primarily of Carbon, which must in some way be efficiently hydrogenated so that needed liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon products, suitable as direct substitutes for those we now extract from petroleum, can be synthesized from Coal.
 
Moreover, as concerns the production of Methane, which is the primary target of the Esso invention we document herein, that specific material is assuming, for us, in the course of our ongoing study, increasing importance, for reasons we have already many times elaborated for you.
 

Method of producing motor fuel
 
Since we are sending today, via separate dispatch, a report further documenting the US Bureau of Mines' development of Coal liquefaction technologies in the years immediately following WWII, in emulation of the extensive Coal-based liquid fuel industries established by the Axis powers at, as we have documented in earlier reports, at least seven sites in Europe and Asia; we wanted to again confirm other of our reports, which documented that the US petroleum industry, as well, recognized Coal's vast potential following WWII, and developed their own technologies to utilize Coal to supply our nation's liquid fuel needs - should they have been finally compelled, by a majority of insightful and concerned political leadership, to do so.
 

Coal liquefaction by hydrogenation
 
We've previously documented the US Bureau of Mines efforts, in the years immediately following WWII, to emulate Germany's and Japan's wartime achievements in the liquefaction of Coal, in order to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
 
Herein, via the two links and two attached documents, and excerpts taken from them, we see that the Bureau actually developed, concurrently, in addition to the "Karrick" Coal conversion process that has been more fully described, and about which we've earlier reported, two processes for the conversion of Coal into liquid fuel.
 
First, from the above link, we excerpt details of the US Government's invention of a solvent-based direct Coal liquefaction technology.
 

Patent US0943627
 
In a dispatch immediately to follow, we report on yet another technology developed by Big Oil, as embodied in Shell Oil, and it's scientists in both The Netherlands and Texas, wherein Carbon Dioxide can be recycled, "tri-reformed", through reactions with Methane and Steam, to synthesize higher hydrocarbons.
 
Although the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Paul Sabatier for demonstrating that such valuable Methane can itself be synthesized from Carbon Dioxide, we demonstrate herein that we have known for even longer that, if we want Methane - whether for recycling Carbon Dioxide; or, for enhancing processes of indirect Coal conversion; or, for direct catalytic condensation; all of which process can be designed to result in the synthesis of liquid hydrocarbons; and, all as we have previously documented - then we can also manufacture Methane via the gasification of Coal.