Medicine Bow Methanol Project, Carbon County, Wyoming - Chemicals Technology


 
Herein, we submit more information regarding Wyoming's Coal-to-Liquid fuel efforts. Their projects and plans are more extensive than we had earlier reported.
 
As example, we submit a few excerpts:

"In December 2007 Medicine Bow Fuel and Power contracted Exxon Mobil Corporation to use their proprietary Methanol to Gasoline (MTG) process technology to work in conjunction with the methanol plant to produce high grade gasoline from the crude methanol produced. The new 15,000bpd unit will be based on the proven MTG process technology which has been used for the last 20 years.

The MTG process will convert the methanol produced directly into low sulphur and low benzene gasoline. This can then be marketed directly or blended with refinery produced gasoline. The gasoline will inherently have low emissions of SOx and NOx because of its synthetic process origins. The technology is being adapted for the Medicine Bow project by EMRE the research and engineering arm of Exxon Mobil Corporation."

We had earlier reported on Exxon-Mobil's MTG technology, and cited some overseas projects where plans were proceeding to employ it.

And:

"The coal feedstock is being provided by Arch Coal who is a shareholder of DKRW Advanced Fuels and an advocate for coal to liquid fuel technologies."

Wyoming, Mike, and lignite. Distant from major markets and reliant on coal that's low in organic content and BTU's, and distant from major markets, relative to West Virginia run-of-mine bituminous; but, perhaps, comparable in quality to some of WV's coal mine waste accumulations - many of which do have potentially-recoverable organic content.

Byrd on Funding for WVU

 
An excerpt, from a compilation of recent funding Senator Byrd has helped secure for WVU:
 
"§ $475,750 for the Long-Term Environmental and Economic Impacts of the Development of a Coal Liquefaction Plant in China program. This funding will allow WVU to continue to access significant data in innovative combination and liquefaction technologies being deployed in China, which will in turn allow the U.S. to better pursue coal-to-liquid transportation fuels projects..."

Coal LIquefaction for Alternative Fuel?

 
Herein a cogent and detailed discussion of coal-to-liquid fuel, it's current realities and future potentials.
 
An excerpt:
 
"The best news of all is the cost of producing synthetic fuels. Rentech of Denver, Colo., a principal producer of synthetic fuels, performed a “scoping” study for the state of Wyoming in 2005. Based on those figures, synthetic fuel production — including both capital and operating costs — using Powder River Basin Coal at $30 per ton plus 10 percent interest would be $1.85 a gallon.
 
(Using, Mike, low-BTU, high-ash - compared to WV bituminous - Great Plains lignite. It's easier - i.e. cheaper - to mine, but it's also a lot further from markets and will produce much more inert waste.)

Increasing the present mining of 1 billion tons of coal per year by an additional billion tons, with the conversion into synthetic fuels at the ratio of 1.25 barrels per ton, the U.S. could reduce imports of crude oil by 15 percent, or reduce import costs by $100 billion per year."

It would buy us time, Mike, to develop truly renewable energy sources, and save us the money for that research, so that we could conserve, and redirect, our coal into the far more valuable applications of manufacturing raw materials to supply our chemicals and plastics manufacturing industries - as in Eastman's Kingsport, Tennessee, plant; as in China's planned 88 coal conversion plants, the bulk of whose produce is intended, according to their 5-Year Plan, to supply their chemicals, plastics and fertilizer industries.

 

Study Finds Coal-to-Liquid is Cheaper Than Petroleum

 
Herein an introductory explanation of domestic coal-to-oil versus imported petroleum economics.
 
An excerpt:
 
"PRLog (Press Release) – Jun 06, 2008 – "Given that the U.S. has 270.7 billion short tons of recoverable coal, or 27% of the worlds' total reserves, the United States can (through coal-to-liquid industrial investments - JtM) reduce its dependency on foreign oil, improve the economies of the coal-bearing states and the country as a whole, increase revenues at the local, state and federal levels, and create domestic jobs in the energy sector and beyond, at a cost that is lower than what we are currently paying for foreign crude," the report states.
 
.... every time one dollar is spent on foreign goods or oil 6.2 times that dollar goes out of the United States, which has a negative effect on economic growth."
 
So, does that mean we can divide the cost of building a coal-to-oil plant by 6.2 to get the real investment cost? Probably not, but it might not be that far off the mark. We've tried to make the point that the money invested in domestic coal-to-oil production translates into additional jobs, and taxes, throughout the US economy. And, it shuts off the flow of our money to overseas powers, many of whom aren't all that well-disposed towards us.
 
It's time to get 'er done - to borrow a phrase.

Progress Check - Biomass and Coal to Gasoline

 

Of interest to us here is the combination of coal, coal waste and biomass.
 
An excerpt:
 
"SES (Synthesis Energy Systems - JtM) is the company with the three projects in China. The Chinese project’s range of outputs get up to making 1 million tons of methanol or 660,000 tons of DME. SES is working with CONSOL Energy Inc., the largest producer of bituminous coal in the U.S. to investigate the development of coal-based gasification facilities to replace domestic production of various industrial chemicals that have been shut down due to the high cost of natural gas. CONSOL produces over 20 million tons per year of coal preparation plant tailings that can be used to make valuable liquid and gas products instead of landfilling the coal trapped in this material."
 
We've noted all these efforts and all these companies' involvement in Coal-To-Liquid enterprises previously. Of special interest, again, is both the note made of the potential to utilize coal tailings (waste) as a raw material for liquid fuel, and chemical, manufacture; and, the inclusion of CO2-reducing biomass as a co-feed/raw material.
 
Coal can lead us into both energy independence and environmentally-responsible sustainability.