Didn't the Third Reich develop synthetic gasoline, and I recall that South Africa, pre the fall of apartheid, also processed coal to make gasoline when they suffered trade embargoes.
I completely agree with you that "Synthetic gasoline is coming". SASOL in South Africa has been gasifying coal for about 40 years ... and the North Dakota Gasification Company has also been gasifying coal in Beulah, North Dakota for about 30 years.
The BTU's in the proven reserves of the surface-mineable coal in our Western states is about 10 times the BTU's in the Saudi Arabia's oil reserves! And then there is also the shale oil in Colorado.
As one who was heavily involved in the design of coal gasification plants in the early 1970's and visited SASOL's plant in South Africa as well as other gasification plants in Europe, it only a matter of time before the technologically-challenged senators and congressmen in Washington wake up and get real about our energy crisis. At crude oil prices of over $130 per barrel, synthetic gasoline from coal is certainly economically viable.
As far as the environmental impacts of coal gasification, all it takes is money to make gasification plants environmentally acceptable. The technology is available.
Milton Beychok
(Visit me at www.air-dispersion.com)
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I think the real environmental impact really takes place once it's burned. Does petrol and diesel fuel from coal burn as "cleanly" in an automotive engine?
I would strongly suspect that the CO2 emissions per HP hour would be very similar.
It might be possible to economically make the higher octane fractions and therefore run higher compression smaller engines to get more NOx but less CO2. The NOx can be removed by the catalytic converter.
This is pure peculation on my part. I have no data nor insider knowledge.
Regards
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It burns cleaner since the components of the fuel are taken apart and put back together in the synthesis process in such a way that the undesirable components (think sulphur among others) are not present. The ever enviromentally conscious state of California loves GTL distillate fuels blended with petroleum diesel because it reduces the sulphur emissions. CTL fuels are essentially the same as GTL fuels; the front end of the plant is different.
The only thing that has kept this technology back in the free world (South Africa is no longer constrained by politics) is price. Now that oil seems to have arrived at a price that makes this competitive, look for it to come on strong. I read on the Rentech website a few years ago that sustained oil prices of $60.00 would justify the investment if I remember the number correctly. Well......guess what? Look for the "oil companies" to become "energy companies" and get on the band wagon as they did with GTL in other parts of the world.
There is no reason why synthetic gasoline and synthetic diesel oil cannot meet or better the same specifications that our current gasolines and diesel oils meet.
For those who think that hydrogen or electric vehicles will be the panacea: as of this time, the only large-scale commercially available technology for producing hydrogen is by the steam reforming of natural gas and/or petroleum naphtha. That technology requires a very great deal of heat input which is supplied by burning natural gas or petroleum fuel oils ... so using hydrogen for vehicle fuel is not a panacea for ending our usage of crude oil. Also as of this time, most of our electrical power is supplied by burning coal or petroleum fuel oil ... so using electric vehicles is also not a panacea for ending our usage of crude oil or for reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
As for solar power, or wind power or tidal power, they are good ideas but, in the near future, they won't make a significant dent in our dependence upon crude oil.
In my opinion, for the near future, we have only two choices for making a significant dent in our dependence upon crude oil: either nuclear power or synthetic fuels produced from coal or shale oil.
Milton Beychok
(Visit me at www.air-dispersion.com)
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Milton, I think you are right and it will happen in time but with our idiotic politicos I wonder if I will happen in my lifetime. The only thing that the technical issues have going for them now is that finally the energy prices have gotten the average persons attention and idiotic statements like the one made today by a high level politico that she is not allowing votes on new oil drilling because she is "trying to save the planet" will be to her doom.
Milton,
IMHO, the only reason this hasn't taken off is that no one believes the current oil prices. While synthetic fuel makes a lot of sense at $125 oil, you build $10 BB of facilities to make a significant amount of the stuff and then you go bankrupt when oil prices slip to $75 a barrel. It was just 10 years ago that oil slipped to $8 a barrel, and if something like that were to happen again for just a year or two these projects would look silly again.
Oil prices right now are driven by the very tight supply - demand of oil coupled with political instability in most of the large oil producing regions. There is no fundamental shortage of oil yet (not that it's not coming, but it's not here yet) so nobody wants to take the synthetic fuel risk.
If oil supplies were to actually dry up, we would go synthetic fairly rapidly. But right now, even at similar or slightly higher oil prices, it's much less risky just to take the oil that's readily available.
One additional economic factor comes into play--it is true that synthetic liquid fuel is now attractive, but the price of coal has also gone up. Don't know for sure about steam coal (which would undoubtedly be used in the process), but metallurgical coal has doubled in the last year.
One advantage to the CTL process is that it can utilize high sulphur coal that is currently out of favor as steam coal due to environmental reasons. Powder river basin coal is in high demand but some eastern coals aren't for those reasons.
As a new member I had to chime in on this important topic.
I have to agree that huge numbers of manufacturing plants making bio fuel will only serve to drive the price of oil back down making them les viable. However, smaller community based or even individualy ownd family sized untis could make the difference and once and for all turn the tables on both the politico's and the oil companies.
The technology exists for the average person to make a significant portion of their own fuel right there at home safely using thier own waste. On the comunity level there are even more opportunities to make this a viable option.
Keep tallking folks this is where change starts.
Bowfisher, what technology exist for the average guy to make his own fuel at home safely? what wood gas, ethanol, biodiesels, biomass methane... out with it. HHO?
dcasto, Google will give you endless (well, almost) possibilities. The theory and, in some cases, the practical application, has been around for a hundred years or more. Especially during fuel shortages around the world during WW II.
In my personal experience...My wife's hair dresser's husband has been making bio diesel for about five years. He still gets most of his used cooking oil for free (despite the current media hype about some restaurants 'selling' their used cooking oil). With mostly 'free oil' and minimal supplies, he is able to make bio diesel for less than two bucks a gallon...factoring the added trips to gather supplies and the fact that his equipment is fully amortized. Not bad...if you don't mind the rather time consuming and really messy parts. I've seen it done and, sorry, not my cup of tea!
Produce it and sell it to me for, hmmmmm, say $2.50 and I'll buy all ya got. No, that won't work cause Arnold and uncle sugar will put a couple bucks tax on it!!!
Evelrod, you've hit on a big part that a lot of the people who promote widespread homemade bio-diesel always seem to gloss over - how much of their own time is spent making it. I like to make my own beer, and my friends always ask 'how much does it cost'? I tell them that for all of the ingredients to make 2 cases of beer, it can cost anywhere from $15 to $35, depending on the recipe. The real cost, if you take into account the hours I spend cleaning the equipment, brewing the beer, monitoring the fermenting beer, bottling the beer, is a lot more than just the cost of the ingredients. Even figuring conservatively, 6 hours to make a batch at $30/hour turns my $15 cost into $195 for two cases. That's pretty expensive beer!
If it's something you enjoy doing, then you can ignore the time aspect because you're having fun doing it. But if you have to spend an hour or two every night doing something that you really don't enjoy just so you can drive to work the next day, then 'homemade fuel' simply won't catch on enough to make even a small dent in the demand for fossil fuels. It makes more sense for me to work an extra 20 minutes and use that money to pay someone to make fuel for me and sell it to me for a reasonable price instead of spending 2 hours making my own.
Bob,
That's a good point. Also the feedstocks for these things are usually quite limited. If everyone tried to make biodiesel from leftover restaurant oil, New York City could only keep maybe 200 cars going that way.
Well, as I saw it, making the bio diesel was pretty easy. Waste is minimal and the fuel is clean. That was not the problem for me.
It takes planning and lots of trips to the local restaurants to collect the oil.
It takes many hours to treat it and convert it to fuel stock.
It takes much effort and cleaning supplies to clean up the mess (yes, no matter how hard you try, it's still messy).
It takes many hundreds of dollars for regular supplies.
It takes, in some cases, thousands of dollars to purchase and set up the equipment.
It takes many more trips to properly dispose of the end waste.
It takes way too many "it takes" for me!
If the price of crude continues to climb to, say, $200/brl. it will make more sense to set up a commercial plant to re convert waste plastics and old tires to fuel stock. Much better idea as we have plenty of waste. Might tie in with the "mining old landfills" thread. Won't happen as long as the price of crude remains at less than $150/brl. Sorry, no one sane is going to invest $billions into a venture that might be rendered non competitive when the price of oil suddenly drops to $100/brl. No one will take the chance and the gov't. will not do anything since they are driven by the oil industry lobby.
Home made bio diesel is now and will remain in the future, a hobby project for the lunatic fringe of our car nut clan.
