We Could Build a Coal-to-Gasoline Conversion Plant

The People of the United States could build a people-owned coal-to-oil
conversion plant and extract as much gasoline, from domestic coal, as we
need, independently of foreign nations. We could just about balance our
budget just on that one item alone. Just call it Manhattan Project II and
get started.

Gasoline would be cheap and stay that way, once foreigners, greedy oil
companies, and profits are taken out of the picture. And even if it wasn't
cheap, its still cheap enough compared to losing our manhood to the Arab
sheiks, Venezuelan strongman, Nigerian Mau-mau, and so on down the line.

That is, if we wanted to. Call the troops home today and we will have
collectively, $1,500,000,000.00 a month to invest in Manhattan Project II
until its done. Put it to the vote of the people: Do they want
gasoline-a-plenty at low cost for ourselves and generations to come, or do
they want to see our beloved country go bankcrupt...to Hell in a handbasket
with empty tanked SUV cars and Pickups littering the landscape and
cemetaries full of their dead soldier-children?

I'm waiting, Mr. President. Please answer before the impeachment
proceedings begin to put you out of the warmongering business (or the
Generals do a coup d'etat).

 

You forget one little obstacle. The "Not in my backyard" crowd.

 

Better yet, you we could build fuel-efficient motor vehicles, develop
alternative sources of energy that don't cause global warming, improve the
efficiency of our houses, and use buses, subways, bikes and our feet to get
around more.

Jeff

 

The first sentence turned me off right away. "people owned"? I hate
those words because it reminds me of the old U.S.S,R.

You must be a socialist.

 

The problem is that no town or city wants any type of power plant to be
built in their back yard. I live in a county that has a Nuclear Power
Plant. The liberals in this state have been trying to close down that
Nuclear Power Plant for the past 20 years. There has not been a new
Nuclear Power Plant built in the past 20 years. The reason is because
no person in America wants a Nuclear Power plant or a Coal to Oil
Conversion Plant to be built in their back yard. There is even a name
for it---NIMBY--.
Jason

 

But you would still be an idiot!
I think 'people-owned' is significant... Aint no crooks in them communes,
no-sir!

Life is so simple for the simple minded...

 

Exactly what South Africa did when the UN sanctions were on them in
the sixties/seventies. Made all their own gasoline from coal, and
their gas cost less in 1973 than real gas dis in Zambia, who could buy
wherever they wanted.
*** ***

 

Read the Washington Post op-ed... not just nimby, now it's BANANAs (build
absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.

No it's time for people to take action alright. First step: The Fed's
should reclaim all territory 12 miles off the beach in the Gulf and
drill.

 

Forget coat to oil - when was the last OIL REFINERY built in the
USA????
*** ***

 

No need to wait, the President has already provided 100 million in federal
money to do almost exactly that, as part of his plan to reduce our
dependency on imported crude. It is not gasoline from coal but clean
burning, low sulfur, diesel fuel.

A plant is being built as we speak in Schuylkill County Pennsylvania that
will convert coal calm (waste coal) into fuel to be used by the state of
Pennsylvania. Eastern Pennsylvania has the world largest reserves of
clean burning low sulfur anthracite coal. Using new coal would be more
costly than using culm. Even producing diesel fuel from waste coal cost
much more the conventional fuel oil and much more than it would coat to
produce gasoline. The only thing that is making that plant cost effective
is the Company has been given a ten year tax exemption, under Pennsylvania's
Keystone development plan that is designed to return "brown fields,"
polluted areas, into tax producing lands. In addition the diesel fuel will
not be taxed by the state of federal government. The current federal tax is
..185c per gallon and the Pa state tax is .26C The sad part is even at $70
a barrel gasoline is still so cheap as a motor fuel that crude will need to
go over $100 a barrel before ANY of the alternate fuel will cost less and
can be sold at a profit.

Search "The Bud Angst Report » Blog Archive » PA Leads With Coal-to-Oil
Solution To Address Energy Needs"


mike hunt

 

In New Orleans--the Fed's should not allow anything to be built in those
areas that were destroyed during the last hurricane. Someone stated,
"Let's rebuild New Orleans in a different part of the state that is ABOVE
sea level."
I agree with the person that made that statement. However, they will not
follow this advice. The end result will be that New Orleans will be
destroyed again within the next 10 years by another hurricane. It's kind
of like rebuilding a house located next to a large river everytime there
is a flood.
New Orleans should be declared "Wetlands". The Fed's protect the Wetlands
in some areas but they don't seem to care about the fact that New Orleans
is a
Wetland.
Jason

 

The folks in Schuylkill County Pa do not agree with your assessment, they
seekm to welcome a coal conversion plant being build there


mike hunt

 

The folks in Schuylkill County Pa do not agree with your assessment, they
seem to welcome the coal conversion plant being build there


mike hunt

 

That is a good idea, the only problem is it will not solve the problem. It
will reduce the INCREASE in the amount of oil we import but not our need for
the fast amounts of crude we use to fuel the various economies of the world.
Gasoline is only a small part of why we need to import crude. The people
in every other major industrial country in the world pays a lot more for
gasoline than do we, and they are still using more every year. If every
vehicle in the US miraculously got twice as many miles per gallon some day
we would still need crude for it carbon stocks and the excess gasoline would
simply be burned off at the refineries, as it was before it became a motor
fuel.


mike hunt

 

The Germans in WW2 used coal for gasoline extensively - yet we can't
seem to get it right after 60+ years.

As long as we have the NIMBY syndrome all fuels are going to keep
going up.

Maybe, just maybe, someday the problem will be recognized. In the
meantime open your wallets cause we haven't even started to feel the
affects of our "green" policies.

Hopefully a little reason will prevail when my Grandkids are
grandparents. (I predict 40 more years of thrashing about like we're
doing now)

Ron

 

And what do you do with whatever's leftover from the conversion process?
Or controlling pollution FROM the conversion process?

Not to mention all the deaths and injuries from MINING coal.

 

(Jason) wrote in

I'd welcome a new nuclear power plant in my "backyard"!
It would be a great source of good jobs,too.
Cleaner and safer than any coal-fired plant.(gotta count mining that coal)

 

Do you want to go into the business? Here is some of the information you
will need along with several bullion dollars in start up finds


The original Fischer-Tropsch process is described by the following chemical
equation:

Failed to parse (Can't write to or create math output directory): CH_4 +
\begin{matrix} \frac{1}{2} \end{matrix}O_2 \rarr 2 H_2 + CO
Failed to parse (Can't write to or create math output directory):
(2n+1)H_2 + nCO \rarr C_nH_{2n+2} + nH_2O

The mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen is called synthesis gas or
syngas. The resulting hydrocarbon products are refined to produce the
desired synthetic fuel.

The carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide is generated by partial oxidation of
coal and wood-based fuels. The utility of the process is primarily in its
role in producing fluid hydrocarbons or hydrogen from a solid feedstock,
such as coal or solid carbon-containing wastes of various types.
Non-oxidative pyrolysis of the solid material produces syngas which can be
used directly as a fuel without being taken through Fischer-Tropsch
transformations. If liquid petroleum-like fuel, lubricant, or wax is
required, the Fischer-Tropsch process can be applied. Finally, if hydrogen
production is to be maximized, the water gas shift reaction can be
performed, generating only carbon dioxide and hydrogen and leaving no
hydrocarbons in the product stream. Fortunately shifts from liquid to
gaseous fuels are relatively easy to make.

[edit]
History
Since the invention of the original process by the German researchers Franz
Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the
1920s, many refinements and adjustments have been made, and the term
"Fischer-Tropsch" now applies to a wide variety of similar processes
(Fischer-Tropsch synthesis or Fischer-Tropsch chemistry)

The process was invented in petroleum-poor but coal-rich Germany in the
1920s, to produce liquid fuels. It was used by Germany and Japan during
World War II to produce alternative fuels. Germany's yearly synthetic fuel
production reached more than 124,000 barrels per day from 25 plants ~ 6.5
million tons in 1944
(http://www.fe.doe.gov/aboutus/history/syntheticfuels_history.html).

((NOTE, it takes four barrels of crude oil to produce one barrel of gasoline
today (2005). Currently the US consumes 220,000,000 barrels of gasonle a
day. I can not find the number of barrels of diesel fuel consumed daily.
IF sombody knows, please post that information)) mike hunt

After the war, captured German scientists recruited in Operation Paperclip
continued to work on synthetic fuels in the United States in a United States
Bureau of Mines program initiated by the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act.

[edit]
Utilization
Currently, two companies have commercialized their FT technology. Shell in
Bintulu, Malaysia, uses natural gas as a feedstock, and produces primarily
low-sulfur diesel fuels. Sasol in South Africa uses coal and natural gas as
a feedstock, and produces a variety of synthetic petroleum products. The
process is today used in South Africa to produce most of the country's
diesel fuel from coal by the company Sasol. The process was used in South
Africa to meet its energy needs during its isolation under Apartheid. This
process has received renewed attention in the quest to produce low sulfur
diesel fuel in order to minimize the environmental impact from the use of
diesel engines. A small US-based company, Rentech, is currently focussing on
converting nitrogen-fertiliser plants from using a natural gas feedstock to
using coal or coke, and producing liquid hydrocarbons as a by-product.

Also Choren in Germany and CWT (Changing World Technologies) have built FT
plants or use similar processes.

The FT process is an established technology and already applied on a large
scale, although its popularity is hampered by high capital costs, high
operation and maintenance costs, and the relatively low price of crude oil.

 

What about YOU, Jeff?

Do you live in a corner of your parents' basement, a block from school?

Or, how much of YOUR transportation needs DON'T involve fossil fuels?

 

thanks for the info Mike. I am like you pretty convinced that until
gasoline is in the say 7-10 dollar/gallon range will we suddenly
discover that we need to explore alternatives. Then there will be a
10-20 year lag to get anything on line. Long past my need for it.

Ron