Hope this is not Off-Topic, as it does carry non-partisan
political overtones. This post is really about the 'missed
opportunity' we have had form many years to be well on our way
into the "hydrogen age" or at least to have subdollar per gallon
methanol.
Of course, we are still delaying the inevitable, even today.
22 years ago, this fantastic article (url below) first appeared in
the "Int. J of Hydrogen." Even then John O'M. Bockris was
considered to be among the top electrochemists around. Sadly his
reputation may have diminished somewhat in the eyes of the
mainstream, due to his subsequent quick acceptance of LENR, when
it came along - but he had the integrity to "follow the facts"
even if it went contrary to textbook liturgy. Matter of fact, he
wrote a few of those textbooks.
This seminal article of Bockris is now posted to the net, and
contains this great section - almost as relevant today as then -
about the prospect of using *coal slurries* to cheaply obtain
hydrogen and eliminate all the non-volatile pollutants from coal.
This will work for methanol as well as hydrogen. And it gets rid
of the sulfur and other noxious pollutants.
As everyone knows, the USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and for
every ton of high grade coal, we have 4 tons of subgrade, which is
unsuitable for power plants or steel making, and is currently
unused - as it has half the BTUs and triple the pollutants - BUT
which is ideal for making hydrogen cheaply with no impact on the
price of coal for other uses. AND - get this with less net
pollution air than with high grade coal or natural gas.
This end of the coal business is different - it is basically a
"transportation business" and not an energy-business - as almost
the entire cost of strip mining subgrade coal is in moving dirt
and replacing dirt after the coal is taken.
This demands an on-site conversion plant. The resultant land is
actually improved for cattle grazing after this has been done -
so it is not the "rape" of the land so bemoaned in Appalachia...
which BTW is absolutely true - but that was for high grade coal
needed for steel - and with no laws in place for returning the
land to its former quality. Too bad about Paradise and the Green
River.
Most of the subgrade coal is in 5 US Western states, and is under
prairie land now - land used for minimal cattle grazing and
supporting only one or two cows per acre. Even though it involves
improving poor land in the long run - that does not mean that the
Sierra Club will not take oil dollars to oppose any such projects.
Here is the Bockris article, of which a description of this coal
technology is only a part and much has been learned since them
relative to subgrade coal.
http://71.197.200.191/egas/files/bockris.pdf
The point is this. We could have already been well into the
hydrogen age, using coal to make hydrogen - had we just had one
thing in place - the national will-power to do this when OPEC
started getting difficult and playing hardball with oil supplies.
But little did we know that to the petrocracy - this Oil Cartel
was an opportunity to fleece consumers even more - and not as a
problem. They actually have made far more money because of OPEC...
and not despite OPEC - leading many to suspect some kind of
collusion.
This national will-power would have only demanded one thing -
getting Big-Oil completely out of government. Ha. Big Oil out of
government - dream on ! Big-Oil IS government. Even in the wake of
Enron, that national resolve to dump Big-Oil and its progeny never
happened; and probably never will - at least until the
Ship-of-State starts to sink at a more rapid rate. Trillion dollar
wars will do that.
Jones
