USDOE Achieves 95%+ Conversion of Consol Coal

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/10116157-47l13r/native/

As odd - but by now unsurprisingly - as it might seem, it was the USDOE's Sandia National Lab, all the way out in New Mexico, that was able to liquefy Coal, at a rate in excess of 95% - by starting with a crude Coal distillate supplied to them by our own, local, Consolidation Coal Company.

That fact would seem confirmed by one statement in this Sandia report, acknowledging "Consol Inc. for providing the dewaxed heavy distillate".

Consol has only a minor presence west of the Mississippi River - one mine, according to web-based resources, in Utah.

Furthermore, the Coal raw materials received by Sandia, from Consol, had already, to a certain extent, been processed.

USDOD & New Mexico Recycle CO2 via Solar Power

Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #6600389

Herein we present further evidence of the USDOD's development of Carbon Dioxide recycling technologies, intended to convert CO2 into hydrocarbon fuels.

We have made several earlier reports about such US Government technology, one more recent example of which is accessible via: US Navy 1982 CO2 + CH4 = Hydrocarbon Syngas | Research & Development | News; and, wherein is detailed "United States Patent: 4347891 - Thermochemical Energy Transport Process; 1982;  Talbot Chubb, VA; Assignee: The USA as represented by the Secretary of the Navy".

The disclosed technology in Patent 4347891 is an example of CO2-Methane "bi-reforming", wherein the two gases are reacted together, and made to form a synthesis gas, composed of Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide and suitable for catalytic condensation, as via, for one example, the Fischer-Tropsch process, into liquid hydrocarbons.

USDOE Hires Consol to Evaluate Alabama Coal Liquids

Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #10124807

We have, over the long course of our reportage, several times documented and referenced the USDOE's support and management of a Coal conversion and liquefaction facility in Wilsonville, Alabama.

One example would include: DOE/BP Liquify Alabama Coal | Research & Development | News; wherein we learned that our USDOE had, inexplicably to us, engaged the services of that multi-national guardian of the environment, British Petroleum, to establish a database of "the coal liquefaction results generated at the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Two-Stage Coal Liquefaction Facility in Wilsonville".

USDOE Pays Penn State to Recycle Coal Jet Fuel By-Products

Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #908630

 

We have many times documented the Carbon conversion expertise that has been established at Penn State University.

Our reports have included a few, such as: Penn State Jet Fuel from Coal | Research & Development | News;

which details "Coal Tar ... As Feedstocks For ... Jet Fuel; 1999; and which confirm that scientists there have, for some time, been studying the conversion of Coal into aviation fuel.

Herein, we see that other scientists at Penn State, including our oft-cited Chunsan Song, have been at work related to other, similar undertakings we have previously reported; i.e., the further recycling and processing of the still-carbonaceous residues which might result from a primary process of converting Coal into more versatile hydrocarbons.

They have, in an effort sponsored, via the USDOE, by our tax money, devised a way in which carbonaceous residues resulting from, perhaps, the process described in "Coal Tar ... As Feedstocks For ... Jet Fuel", or similar Coal  conversion technologies, can be further processed into raw material feed stock suitable for conventional petroleum refineries.

USDOE Promotes Coal Liquefaction

http://iic.pnl.gov/docs/coals_liquid.pdf

So far, we've only been able to provide rather dry technical papers, business-like contract reports and dusty historical archives, with some airy news releases thrown in, as documentation of the fact that Coal can be efficiently converted into the familiar and traditional liquid hydrocarbon fuels we've all come to know and love.

Herein, we see that the stodgy old USDOE went a little Madison Avenue on us, and put together a colorful and glossy promotional flyer - an attractive handout touting the reality and practicality of converting Coal into those beloved liquid fuels.