Quote:
Originally Posted by Mule
Your statement may make some sense to you but probably not to many others.
1. This technology has been in existence for at least 60 years. My guess is that it has been improved on since the nazis first used it. According to you, this particular process cannot be improved on by technology. I call BS.
2. Nobody has said it's free. Those involved in the process say $55 per bbl.
I thought this was simple.
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South Africa and our plant in ND use the old Fischer Tropsch batch reactors.
In the '70's there was a huge push for more advanced technologies. The Institute for Gas Technology developed some (Hygas, Steam Iron etc), Texaco developed a very appealing gasifier technology as well. There are others. All of them have similar designs. you pulverize the coal, spray it into a heated reactor where you inject O2 (or air) that allows the coal to partially burn into CO, water and hydrogen. Add more water to use the CO formed to convert the H2O into CO2 and H2 and allow the H2 to react with the CO formed to make synthetic fuels. Depending on the reaction conditions, you can make a variety of products. They all died from unfavorable economics due to the price of oil.
I am not sure if it is still operating, but in Tennesse (
http://www.eastman.com/NR/rdonlyres/030719DC-A795-48A6-9619-32BE84E84EC8/0/Growth_Through_Gasification_Brochure.pdf) there is (was) a coal to chemicals plant that uses these later technologies.
Bottom line: They all must obey the chemistry and convert some portion of the feedstock (coal) into energy (to dirve the process) and for conversion of water to hydrogen.
Another bit of food for thought. I used to work for a chemical compnay that purchased from third parties vast quantities of Ethylene. They did not buy the feedstocks and make it themselves. Why not after all they could easily afford to build their own plant. As it turned out, because everytime a supplier decided to raise proces, the company would start designing and building an ethylene plant to supply their own needs. They never broke ground but instead, the suppliers saw the light and lowered thier price to a point where my company would not see the benefit of building it's own plant. Perhaps this is the strategy we need to pursue.
Or perhaps as long as we are in Iraq, we take over the pipelines and terminals, run the wells flat out, fill our tankers and bring the crude here as payment for American lives and resources lost over there.