Quote:
Originally Posted by Mule
Physics doesn't have a damn thing to do with it. It's called technology. Look into it. You might want to offer your advice on efficiency to the people who are doing this currently. I'm sure they'd be interested.
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Actually, physics (in the form of chemistry) does have alot to do with this.
Coal contains (more of less) one carbon for each hydrogen. Liquid fuels contain 2 hydrogens for each carbon and gas contains 4 hydrogens for each carbon.
If you want to liquify coal, you need more hydrogen. where can you get hydrogen, why from water (H2O)! How do you convert water to hydrogen? easy! mix it with carbon and strip the oxygen off. Hmmmm.... where do you ge tthe carbon?, this is easy too, from the coal! but there is a catch, each carbon you use to make a hydrogen is less coal to make fuel.
So, lets put this together, you want to make liquid fuels, so you need to go from a carbon: hydrogen ration of 1:1 to 1:2. This means that approximately half of hte coal you use will be converted to hydrogen and then to liquid fuel. Plus, to generate the necessary hydrogen, you need to put energy in to drive the conversion (the separating the hydrogen from the water molecule requires a net input of energy).
Believe me this has been reviewed time and time again. FWIW, use of coal for "clean fuels" has been studied since the dawn of the industrial age (1800's), but physics/chemistry is a cruel mistress. You gotta pay to play.