WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

More Italian Coal Cooking

Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #720674 
 
We have documented the WWII, and more contemporary, work performed by the Axis powers on converting coal into liquid fuels.
 
Herein is more information on the CTL work that has been performed in Italy. Like much about coal conversion scientific development which has been conducted among the Western powers, however, the Italian effort seems to have winked out, tellingly from our perspective, sometime in the late Eighties or early Nineties.
 
In any case, they were at work on some, perhaps, innovative techniques that might have involved direct reduction, of water and CO2, chemistry to generate active H and CO ions for coal conversion reactions, in addition to the use of the hydrogen-donor coal solvent, tetralin, which, we believe, according to other published reports, is integral to WVU's "West Virginia Process" for coal liquefaction.
 
The excerpt:
 
"New CO/water conversion of coal; Topical report, January 1, 1986--December 31, 1988
 
Del Bianco, A., Girardi, E.[Eniricerche SpA, Milan (Italy)]
 
1988 Dec 31
 
DOE/FE/60925--T2
Ministero dell`Industria, Milan (Italy)
 
 
The primary objective of this research was to study the chemistry of coal liquefaction in carbon monoxide-water system in order to develop more efficient routes of coal hydrogenation. Work was accomplished under two Tasks aimed to optimize the yields of coal conversion as a function of the operating variables (Task 1) and to evaluate the quality of the coal-liquids in comparison with similar products from more conventional donor-solvent liquefaction processes (Task 2). Under Task 1, a set of four medium and low rank coals were converted under CO-steam conditions and the effect of changing the operating variables and nature of the catalysts were examined to understand the chemistry of this reaction more fully. These studies confirmed that a water-gas-shift reaction (WGSR) intermediate is the reducing species of the system and that a good matching between the reactions of WGSR-intermediate generation and thermal coal activation is essential to yield high coal conversions. The potential of temperature-staged liquefaction as well as the use of multicomponent catalytic systems were investigated. After establishing the optimum reaction conditions, comparative tests of coal liquefaction with tetralin/H2 were performed (Task 2). Results showed that the CO/water system gives coal conversion yields which are comparable, if not superior, to that obtained with the donor-solvent. 27 refs., 26 figs., 10 tabs"
 
Now, it would be nice to have access to those 27 references, figures and etc., wouldn't it? Since this citation is found in our own, US, Department of Energy's database, it should be available, in it's entirety, along with it's referenced works, and all the other coal-to-liquid fuel conversion references we've posted, shouldn't it?

Microbes Convert Coal

Microbial Conversions of Low Rank Coals - Nature Biotechnology
 
To further validate the substance of Joe's WVU research in the early Seventies, into the microbial conversion of carbonaceous coal mine wastes and low rank coals, and of Craig Venter's much more current research into carbon-converting microbes, we submit the enclosed from our own, US, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
 
Comment follows: (And, note: We are including this report's rather substantial list of documentation. The point of that being: Joe's WVU research, Craig Venter's current interests and this subject article are not isolated, speculative intellectual excursions. Just as very real, though deliberately-obscured, technologies exist which can convert coal into liquid fuels and chemicals, equally-obscured biotechnologies exist which would enable us, in a "green" way, to utilize low-rank, otherwise uneconomical coal deposits, and some coal mine refuse accumulations, to produce liquid fuels.
 
The excerpt, with additional comment following the extensive reference list:
 
"Microbial Conversions of Low Rank Coals
Brendlyn D. Faison
Chemical Technology Division, and Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831.
Coal is the United States' most abundant nonrenewable energy resource. However, the quality of many coals is too low to offset the practical, economic, and regulatory barriers to their utilization. A variety of bacterial and fungal species have been shown to attack low rank (i.e., low-quality) coals. Technologies based on these microbial activities may be useful for the conversion of these coals to more useful products, including high-quality fuels and chemicals. Substantial developmental work will be required in order for these microbial processes to become competitive with nonbiological processes. This review summarizes the microbiological and biochemical principles underlying microbial coal conversion as a basis for predicting the practical utility of coal bio-processes. 
 

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Stewart, D.L., Thomas, B.L., Bean, R.M. and Fredrickson, J.K. 1990. Colonization and degradation of oxidized bituminous coal by Penicillium sp. J. Indus. Microbiol. 6: 53-58. | ISI | ChemPort |
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Faison, B.D., Clark, T.M., Lewis, S.N., Ma, C.Y., Sharkey, D.M. and Woodward, C.A. 1991 Degradation of organic sulfur compounds by a coal solubilizing fungus. Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 28/29: 237-251."
We can, it seems, use bio-technology to convert some coal mine wastes, and low-rank coals, into liquid fuels; a concept which should appeal to the evergreen corn ethanol crowd, who would rather see us fill up our fuel tanks with our food supply, but who might be mollified to see us, instead, cleaning up some of our coal mine refuse piles to manufacture liquid fuels in an economical, ecological, all-natural way.

Bangladesh "Gets It"

Energy Bangla - Producing Diesel from Natural Gas or Coal - A magical technology for Bangladesh
 
The wording of this Bangladesh article might seem awkward to US readers, but the meaning should be quite clear: 
 
"Producing Diesel from Natural Gas or Coal - A magical technology for Bangladesh
 
It may sound something from the science fiction movies but it is a reality. Natural gas or coal can be commercially converted into liquid diesel oil and other valuable products. The synthesized diesel can run vehicles on the road or produce electricity in the power plant just like traditional petroleum diesel.
The technology will allow Bangladesh to successfully produce diesel oil utilizing own natural resources. So, the country will not need to import crude oil. Hence the technology offers dual benefit for Bangladesh. Firstly it saves a huge amount of hardly earned foreign currency. Secondly, it will make a pathway to utilize the natural gas and coal reserves of Bangladesh which is at present not utilized properly."
As different as Bangladesh might be from the United States, what's true there is true here: CoalTL would save "a huge amount of ... currency" and "utilize ... coal ... which is ... not utilized properly". CTL would be "A magical technology for"  West Virginia, for the United States of America, just as it is, and has been, as we have fully demonstrated and documented, a scientific and practical reality elsewhere in the world.
Pretend that pen in your hand is a wand, and make some magic happen.

Coal Liquefaction Plants Essential - The Intelligencer/Wheeler

 
Your own words pretty much summed it up two years ago: 

"Coal Liquefaction Plants Essential

By the News-Register
POSTED: August 15, 2007
 
 
The sooner U.S. leaders begin to support coal liquefaction, the better — both in terms of energy independence and reducing pollution."
 
We haven't heard much from you in a similar vein since - except that the WV Coal Association has backed your admonition up with solid documentation in their "R&D Blog, by Joe the Miner".
 
Coal liquefaction plants are essential: They could lead us into energy independence, a cleaner environment and renewable fuel; all, again, as documented by your own, WV, Coal Association.
 
If all of your readers knew just how real, how "do-able", all of that is, perhaps the message would get through to your political leaders.
 
It is way past time they did hear that message, don't you think?
 

Coal Means No Oil Shortage - MoneyWeek

 
As a break from our somewhat relentless barrage of science journal articles demonstrating the pragmatic reality of coal-to-liquid transformation technologies, herein is acknowledgement of that CTL reality, and a brief review of the technology's economic implications, from a general-audience investment and money-management journal.
 
The excerpt:
 
"In addition to petrol, diesel and avgas, the process (Sasol's coal-to-liquid conversion technology) produces a wide range of by-products such as petrochemicals, waxes, feedstocks for plastics manufacture, and fuel gas.

While it’s forecast that the world will run short of conventional oil within a century, with most of the remaining large deposits in politically unstable regions, there is little recognition that coal is an abundant substitute. Enough for more than a thousand years. 

The US has the world’s largest coal deposits, with 268 billion tons of recoverable reserves. HSBC says that at a standard conversion rate of two barrels of synthetic fuels from one ton of coal, those reserves are equivalent to the 20 times the nation’s current crude oil reserves.

At capital costs of $700 million for capacity of 10,000 barrels/day and a 30-year life, operating costs of $15/barrel and current coal costs, breakeven for a coal-to-liquids plant in the US would be in the range $39-44 a barrel, assuming no tax incentives.

However, the new Highway Act provides a subsidy of $21 a barrel for commercial-scale CTL projects. Taking that into account, with oil at $50 a barrel (that is, well below current prices around $70), the internal rate of return on such a project would be in the mouth-watering range 22-25 per cent.

It would also be environmentally friendly, as the technology converts dirty coal into “ultra-clean” synthetic diesel and jet fuel that can be used in current engines without adaptation. And “the fuels are easily transportable and marketable, as they are compatible with existing petro-fuel distribution infrastructure” (unlike ethanol-blended petrol, bio-diesel and more radical alternative fuels).
 
The world isn’t going to run out of oil while there’s all that coal that can be turned into liquid fuels."
 
An investment in Coal-to-Liquid sounds pretty good, downright "mouth-watering", doesn't it? And, we have enough coal to last for "more than a thousand years".
 
Moreover, the "US has the world’s largest coal deposits, with 268 billion tons of recoverable reserves... (and) at a standard conversion rate of two barrels of synthetic fuels from one ton of coal, those reserves are equivalent to the 20 times the nation’s current crude oil reserves".
 
We'll note that, some coal conversion processes posit 3 barrels per ton of coal, rather than the 2 barrels per ton suggested in this article, depending on the coal's grade; and, there's no mention of the commercial by-products that can be co-produced.
 
We are not going to run out of oil while we have "all that coal that can be turned into liquid fuels". IF WE get off our butts and START turning that coal into oil. 
 
Way past time we did just that.