Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryD
I hate to disillusion you (FWIW I was one of the workers on President Carter's MEOW (Moral Equivalent of War)). I must have looked at dozens of Caol to synthetic fuel plants. In 1977 when oil was expected to go to $50/bbl, none of the plants would make money. The cost of the technology was very high and to large degree, unproven.
One of the things that struck me in every design I looked at was that to raise the steam necessary to run the process, they always had a coal fired boiler with FGD and ESP to reduce emissions. When I asked the designers why they did not use the fuel produced by the plant to make process steam, they always responded that the cost of steam from the fuel product was higher than that made by a traditional coal fired boiler. In other words the fuel produced was too expensive.
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You haven't disillusioned me at all. Are you sure Carter wasn't using peanuts? Nazi Germany did this 60 yrs ago. South Africa is doing it today. South Dakota is doing it today at a cost of $55 a bbl. So I'm not sure what your point is. Maybe this link will explain it better.
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/13377/could-coal-replace-oil.html