Yes, it does say oil and coal.
Oh if it were true. I suspect that what will occur in the usa is
increasing reliance on coal- via liquefaction or gasification. The
world in general and the usa in particular have reserves of coal
which are at least an order of magnitude greater than oil and gas.
I've been saying that for some time, but nobody seems to take any
notice. Maybe words like "Fischer-Tropsch" don't have any reality for
people, just words. You know what it means and so do I, since I come
from South Africa where it's long been a reality - gasoline produced
from poor-quality coal that won't even burn, but the gasoline's just
fine. That's the Sasol operation, of course. Here's an archives
snippet about it:
"One of our oldest scientists, now 84 yrs. old, was responsible for
going into Germany post WWII and uncovering the remains of Hitler's
synthetic fuels machine which had been bombed out. I'm speaking of
Fischer-Tropsch oily-based paraffins which are hydrocracked down
into shorter chains for synthetic gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. He
brought back some of the original German scientists who'd perfected
this technology which utilized coarse, low-grade brown German coal
as feedstock. Three times he tried to start-up an American version
of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels in the GTL arena and was blocked. As
the highest ranking American energy technologist post WWII, he
couldn't figure this out. It was over 20 years later that he
realized that the late John Rockefeller of Standard Oil [Exxon] had
been the politic behind the scenes, making sure that his new,
alternative fuel ideas did not materialize. This scientist then took
his blueprints for the first major GTL project and gave them to
Sasol who built his first coal gasification device back in 1953 and
it is still operating today. Sasol from South Africa is the oldest
synthetic fuels producer globally."
Now the boot's on the other foot: big energy is interested in this
again, and seems to be putting big money into developing it. Some
other archives snippets - the links are probably dead now but I have
the originals stashed away somewhere:
The WWII Fischer-Tropsch process that fueled German tanks and aircraft
has been truncated. The last distillation stage is not only
unnecessary, but second-stage oil is apparently superior in performance
to third-stage. A lot cheaper too.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/synfuel981106.html
And:
The conventional oil demand trend has been calculated at about 2.2% per year
to 2050 and beyond, while production will peak probably between 2020 and
2030 and decline thereafter. The unknown of course is to what extent non IC
energy generating technology evolves. The other factor is gas to liquid
(GTL) technology. Whilst production cost (with all due respects to Doc
Simpson) of second and third generation technology Fischer-Tropsch (FT)
diesel and naphtha derivatives will probably hover around $10-$15 per barrel
(incl. amortisation costs), it seems that to reach these low levels, plants
must scale to 10,000+ barrels per day output in conjunction with the sale of
electricity. The capital costs for such plants are around $220-$400 million
and need to be located close to an abundant supply of low grade gas. See the
SASOL web site http://www.sasol.co.za/ for example, and search the
downloadable documents for some up to date info on that subject, also with
regard to CO2 emissions of synthetic liquid fuels.
And:
And now, with improved FT reactor catalysts, synthetic ethanol and
higher mixed alcohols including propanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol,
heptanol and 8-carbon octanol can be produced as well using coal as a
cheap and abundant feedstock. Alternatively, pipeline methane or even
society's garbage and sewer sludge utilized as bio-feedstocks work
exceptionally well for the typical "front end" processes of steam
reformation or gasification which typically drive this synthetic fuel
technology. Synthesis gas is a mixture of three basic elements to
include carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrocarbons (oils) are molecules
containing Hydrogen & Carbon. Oxycarbons (alcohols) simply add a third
element Oxygen and become water soluble, thus biodegradable.
And so on. You get the impression that there's plenty of room left
for development and improvement of the FT process, and there's
hundreds of years' worth of cheapo coal lying about doing not much,
other than inspiring a frenzy to dig it up. So just on that count
Hubbert's Peak falls apart, IMO.
Not that it matters, much. No matter how much or how little fossil
fuel of whatever ilk we have left we're going to have to give it up,
if we still want a planet we can live on. (I'm not sure the big corps
do insist on that small condition though... ) Cold turkey too - as we
all know, substitutes don't work when it comes to curing an
addiction, which this certainly is. So, in that respect, biofuels
also don't work, or not as a substitute for planet-wrecking
gas-guzzling. We'll have to learn to be sane about energy use, no
matter the source of the energy. In that context biofuels make sense.
Further, utilization of coal increases the amount CO2 released per
unit of energy produced.
Well, yes, there's that. "Clean coal", they say, or yell.
"Contradiction in terms," say those who know better.
Best wishes
Keith
Simon Fowler wrote:
In practice, world oil production has already peaked and will probably
reduce by 3 - 5 % per year from now on. This will therefore automatically
provide the reduction in CO2 production in that time.
Simon
--
Bob Allen, Professor of Chemistry , http://ozarker.org/bob
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