Gasoline from Coal

Since the price of gasoline has gone up so quickly (and with it the price of everything that is transported using gas) I am going to have several posts about different ways to lower the price of gas and alternative fuels. I'm sure there are competing products out there that are economical at today's prices around $4 a gallon, that oil executives don't want us to know about.

So the first fuel we'll be looking at is making gasoline (and diesel and jet fuel) from coal, a resource that there is more of than oil and that is more evenly distributed around the world.

This is not a new idea. Germany made gas from coal during World War II (more than 124,000 barrels per day worth in early 1944). Germany had almost no petroleum supplies of its own, and as supplies were cut off, they made gas from something they did have: coal.

The United States government funded research on making gas from coal starting April 5, 1944 with the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act. In 1948 America starting importing more oil than it exported. On March 15, 1948 the act was amended and funding extended to 8 years amidst concerns of an energy crisis and accusations that oil companies were driving up prices. (That part sounds familiar) The cost estimates were revised several times. In the early 1950's estimates of cost per gallon ranged from 11 cents to 34.8 cents. Gas from oil was about 10.6 cents per gallon at the time.

Then we imported more oil from the Middle East and the oil companies used their clout to stop funding for the competing product in March 1953.
http://fossil.energy.gov/aboutus/history/syntheticfuels_history.html

Some benefits of making gas from coal are: reducing dependency on foreign oil by using a domestic fuel, coal is relatively inexpensive compared to oil, we can also use heat waste by placing the coal refining near things like electric plants, and creating jobs here in the United States.

Here is a presentation by the Department of Energy's Lowell Miller http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/conf/miller/miller.ppt
It is actually pretty interesting if you give it a read (I promise that there are pretty graphs). South Africa is making gas from coal right now, and there are three of these plants under construction in China, more are in planning stages throughout the world (including the United States). Mr. Miller estimates that this will be economical at prices of $45 to $60 per barrel! And as production ramped up would decrease to $35 per barrel. With today's prices of over $100 a barrel that is a significant difference!
Mr. Miller also gave a statement to the U.S. Senate in April 2006 which can be found here: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/epact/pdfs/plg_docket/statement_lowell_miller.pdf
in which Mr. Miller gives a nice summery of the history of gas from coal:

"Production of liquid fuels from coal has a long history, and the significant advances made in technology over the past two decades make it a potential component of a strategy to increase domestic production of liquid fuels. In the early 1900’s coal was first reacted with hydrogen and process solvent at high temperature and pressure, and produced a coal-derived liquid or synthetic crude oil. This direct liquefaction approach was later improved and used by Germany in the second world war to fuel the Luftwaffe with high octane aviation gasoline. In the 1920’s two German scientists, Fischer and Tropsch, passed synthesis gas – consisting of carbon monoxide and hydrogen – over metallic catalysts and produced pure hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons produced by the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process proved to be excellent transportation fuels. This overall coal-to-liquids process, known as indirect liquefaction because it first involves complete breakdown of the coal to synthesis gas, was used commercially in the 1950’s by the South African Synthetic Oil Corporation (SASOL) to produce transportation fuels (gasoline and diesel) using synthesis gas produced by the gasification of coal. Since then, SASOL has built two large
facilities that produce over 150,000 barrels per day of transportation fuels. The South African government enabled these plants to be built by providing a price floor safety net for SASOL’s coal liquids. In both cases, Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa, the primary motivation for government support of coal liquids was that the countries were not able to access world oil markets."

Mr. Miller also says that "These indirect liquefaction of coal processes produce clean, zero sulfur liquid fuels that are cleaner than required under the EPA Tier II fuel regulations" (and he assumes that CO2 is a pollutant, but that's another post)

This is sounding pretty good. You could alway write to your representatives and tell them you like this gas from coal idea while telling them to shoot down the Lieberman-Warner bill aka America's Security Act of 2007 (What is with the 1984esk naming of this stuff anyway?). If you haven't heard it would put a cap on CO2 emissions and tax the American public for making CO2 and letting the rich buy exceptions. It would also cost the U.S. an estimated 1 to 3 million jobs by 2020.

Anyway, when can I buy this gas from coal at the pump?
Happy Reading. :)


http://www.knowledgeproblem.com/archives/002049.html

http://environmental-engineering.suite101.com/article.cfm/coal_gasification