Montana's governor eyes coal to solve U.S. fuel costs

[scratchtasia]

HELENA, Montana (Reuters) - Montana's governor wants to solve America's rising energy costs using a technology discovered in Germany 80 years ago that converts coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel.

But with U.S. crude oil now hitting more than double that price, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan is getting more attention across the country and some analysts are taking him very seriously.

. . .

"We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now."

Full article.

Love that quote. Will have to try to find more info about this technology.

[wuushew]

1. A plant like this must be very capital intensive

otherwise I cannot think of a single reason why such plants were not built years ago.

Certainly the coal industry would love it. Perhaps big coal and big oil will kill each other.

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Low Octane Rating

The fuel, ERSATZ (IIRC), made by the Germans in WW2 had a low Octane rating. The US Army tried to use some of the captured fuel during the war. Promptly destroying several vehicals due to the resulting knocking, with their higher compression engines.


If we dropped the compression ratios of Spark Ignited engines or all switch to Compression Ignition (Diesel)engines. It might be possible. Or there may be a way to synthesize a higher octane fuel.

[wuushew]

9. Yeah 78 Octane is pretty low

I wonder if it could be upped by adding ethanol to at least meet E85 standards.

I was not aware of this but apparently we had operational government run plants to convert coal until Eisenhower canned the program.

http://www.fe.doe.gov/aboutus/history/syntheticfuels_history.html

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. Would need a 50% mix

with Ethanol to get to 85 Octane.

[getmeouttahere]

2. If it's so great, why haven't we used it before?

particularly since it was discovered 80 FREAKING YEARS AGO!!!!

[havocmom]

6. Oil was cheaper and oil barons have more pull in DC

for starters.

Same reasons we don't use a lot of wind and solar power: Thems thats in charge don't want to switch until they have to. And you can bet they will have a strangle hold on means of using renewable energy before they allow for change over on a large scale. They got rid of the tax credits for converting to solar after Reagan's administration hit DC, it was made up of the same clowns we have now...

[Wetzelbill]

13. because now that the price of oil is so high it's more cost effective

[DenaliDemocrat]

16. Because King Faud was smart

He knew that cheap oil meant longevity for his country. It was economically unfeasible to use anything other than oil Now with oil spiking, expect such technologies and coal extraction and shale cracking to become economically viable.

[pauldavid]

3. You can make bio-diesel

for $.50 per gallon out of wast cooking oil. How 'bout we get cooking with that too.

[bmbmd]

4. When I took organic chemistry in college

one of our final exam essay questions was to describe how one might take a lump of coke and make everything from it "except Dr. Pepper". Coal is clean burning, cheap, and plentiful. It can be mined more cleanly than oil can be extracted, and the land can be reclaimed. We need to do this now.

[wuushew]

5. The mining of coal is not environmentally benign

however schemes to gasify or covert coal to synthetic fuels would eliminate the problem of mercury emissions from combustion. Additionally you can take the sulfur out of oil much easier than solid coal.

Montana seems like a bad place to build this since the clean coals of the Western states lack the high hydrogen content of the dirtier cheaper coals of the East. Also would it not make sense to locate production areas closer to refineries and distribution centers?

[MadHound]

10. You obviously either weren't paying attention during organic chem

Or you were being fed a line of BS.

Coal mining destroys the surrounding enviroment, since in most cases these days coal mining goes way beyond strip mining, they just grind the mountain down.

Also burning coal is one of the leading causes of air pollution and acid rain. The NE ecology has been altered drastically by massive use of coal in factories and power plants.

Sorry but rather use such a limited and polluting energy source, we should switch over to clean, renewable energy resources.

[Wetzelbill]

14. this conversion technology allows the fuels to burn cleanly...

also, he's done a lot so far in switching Montana towards renewable energy resources. I'm going to run for State Senate there, and if elected I'll try to get him to do more. But, make no mistake, Brian Schweitzer is the leader on all of this stuff right now. No Governor is doing more than he is to wean our country off of ME energy resources. The big problem is the WH and Congress have shown no leadership on this issue whatsoever.

[K-W]

7. This cant be a good historical parrallel.

Our illegal war of aggression has hurt our ability to affordably import oil, so we maybe forced to use the same technology the Nazi's used when their aggression hurt thier ability to import oil.

[krkaufman]

12. Gotta like the vague "rats and crooks" grouping he tossed in.

Methinks that was his way of including the oil companies and their political cronies.

[Strelnikov_]

15. F-T Is Also Being Applied To GTL (Methane To Liquids)

to make 'clean' diesel (clean being relative in this case). One company has developed a modification of the process to build small plants that can be located in remote locations to convert 'stranded' gas. That is, gas that is now burnt off. The company brief notes a potential of 1 M bbl/dy worldwide through conversion of this 'stranded' gas.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/03/syntroleum_targ.html

Company glossies:

http://www.syntroleum.com/media/brochure.pdf (.pdf)

http://www.syntroleum.com/media/Syntroleum_S2.pdf (.pdf)


Qatar is also moving heavily toward GTL.

http://www.eyeforenergy.com/news.asp?id=352

Personally, I think GTL makes a lot more sense than LNG for these remote gas fields that cannot be connected by pipeline to markets. GTL product, being basically fuel oil, can be easily and safely transported. LNG, on the other hand . .

The immediate energy shortage is going to be in liquid transportation fuels, and that is where we will need the methane. Home heating, through a comprehensive energy plan, can be transitioned to geothermal, which would permit use of electricity, generated by renewable sources where possible, for heating. Feedstock utilization of methane can be transitioned over time, in most cases, to other compounds.

A good overview on the capability of GTL and coal liquids to mitigate the coming liquid fuels crises is in the following report.

Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management.
Hirsch, Bezdek, Wendling, February 2005

www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/The_Hirsch_Report_Proj_Cens.pdf (.pdf)

The study included liquid fuels development from coal liquids, GTL, heavy oil and enhanced recovery, along with vehicle efficiency measures. Speed of implementation of the modeled actions were as stated:

As a limiting case, we choose overnight go-ahead decision-making for all actions, i.e., crash programs. Our rationale is that in a sudden disaster situation, crash programs are most likely to be quickly implemented. Overnight go-ahead decision-making is most probable in our Scenario I, which assumes no action prior to the onset of peaking.

The depressing conclusions of this report are as follows.

Because conventional oil production decline will start at the time of peaking, crash program mitigation inherently cannot avert massive shortages unless it is initiated well in advance of peaking.

Specifically,
* Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before initiating crash program mitigation leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or longer.
* Initiating a crash program 10 years before world oil peaking would help considerably but would still result in a worldwide liquid fuels shortfall, starting roughly a decade after the time that oil would have otherwise peaked.
* Initiating crash program mitigation 20 years before peaking offers the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period.

Without timely mitigation, world supply/demand balance will be achieved through massive demand destruction (shortages), accompanied by huge oil price increases, both of which would create a long period of significant economic hardship worldwide.