Northeast Pennsylvania may become the home the first waste-coal to liquid fuels plant in the United States within four years if all goes right. The plant will be located on a 75-acre site near Gilberton, Schuylkill County. With oil prices at historic highs, China is moving full steam ahead with a controversial process to turn its vast coal reserves into barrels of oil. The cost to convert the coal is $25 a barrel, the company says, a price that oil seems unlikely to fall to in the near future. So Rentech is discussing a second plant in Natchez, Miss., and participating in a third proposed project in Carbon County in Wyoming. SECUNDA, South Africa -- Every day, conveyor belts haul about 120,000 metric tons of coal into an industrial complex here two hours east of Johannesburg. The facility -- resembling a nuclear power plant, with concrete silos looming over nearby potato farms -- superheats the coal to more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It adds steam and oxygen, cranks up the pressure, and pushes the coal through a series of chemical reactions. Then it spits out something extraordinary: 160,000 barrels of oil a day. For decades, scientists have known how to convert coal into a liquid that can be refined into gasoline or diesel fuel. But everyone thought the process was too expensive to be practical. The lone exception was South Africa, a one-time pariah state that had huge reserves of coal and, thanks to anti-apartheid sanctions, limited access to foreign oil. Sasol Ltd., a partly state-owned company, built several coal-to-liquids plants, including the ones at Secunda, and became the world's leading purveyor of coal-to-liquids technology. The cost to convert the coal is $35 in South Africa.
This is fascinating. I never new that this was an option. Although I personally feel that putting money into turning polutants, such as coal and other non renewable resources, into oil is a waste of time, money and the atmosphere. Why don't the money it would use to develop the facility and put it into developing more environmentally (and ultimantely more economically friendly) ways of producing bio fuel.
Unfortunately as long as there is oil and other 'easier' alternatives I really can't see the oil companies throwing their weight behind the movement. The movement towards bio fuel really needs to be spareheaded my the US government. This in itself is a challenge because from what I have seen major corporations such as the oil companies have too much power of the US Government, with many candidates being sponsored but said companies. What do you all think? will we get more bio fuel in the future?
Very very interesting indeed But the question to be asked is, "Just how much Oil can be produced from Coal?". There has to be a physical limit to it. Just like experts believe Canada's Oil Tar Sands in Alberta are capable of producing not moer than 5 million barrels of oil a day. Thats HUGE compared to this, but still not big enough. This planet needs to consume 80 million barrels every day just to carry on with its daily routine. And the numbers are growing, whereas production can't catch up. Just like the article sad, you input 120,000 metric tons of coal, and then "superheats the coal to more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, add steam, oxygen and increase pressure" and the output is 160,000 barrels of oil a day. Not good enough. This will seriously cap the amount of oil produced by this method. It is basically a coal mining operation. IMHO, the world will have to turn to CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). We have lots of Natural Gas, and existing vehicles can be easily retrofitted with these converters. More than 60% of Oil currently goes into making transportation fuels. All that oil saved would mean a disaster averted. I suggest you check out Peak Suburbia