Economic warfare

[HarryD]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Oh man, dirty word! Go wash your mouth out with soap!
In the refinery where I work (a former Texaco refinery), right in the middle of the area I'm responsible for, we have a Texaco gasifier unit.
Thank god that POS is no longer in commission.
They shut it down years ago because it was soooo unreliable and so inefficient, and soooooo dangerous.
If they ever decided to re-start that hunk of junk I'd quit.

LOL

When i was working with IGT on their pilot units, if they strung together more than three days of run time it was a huge sucess. Do you think the other gasifiers are any better. I think not.

But of course the big oil companies are intentially holding up this technology

[speeder]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Oh man, dirty word! Go wash your mouth out with soap!
In the refinery where I work (a former Texaco refinery), right in the middle of the area I'm responsible for, we have a Texaco gasifier unit.
Thank god that POS is no longer in commission.
They shut it down years ago because it was soooo unreliable and so inefficient, and soooooo dangerous.
If they ever decided to re-start that hunk of junk I'd quit.

Just thinking about all of the oil companies that have been absorbed in mergers in my lifetime. (48 years). Texaco, Gulf, Pure, Standard Oil...

Remember the ads? "You can trust your car to the man who wears a star, the big, red Texaco star..."

[Mule]

Originally Posted by HarryD

LOL

When i was working with IGT on their pilot units, if they strung together more than three days of run time it was a huge sucess. Do you think the other gasifiers are any better. I think not.

But of course the big oil companies are intentially holding up this technology

Do you have a lot of flat earth society cohorts who believe as you do? So how do you all explain the fact that the nazis were running their war machine on this stuff 60 years ago? Remember, if you get too close to the edge, you fall off!

[HarryD]

Originally Posted by Mule

Do you have a lot of flat earth society cohorts who believe as you do? So how do you all explain the fact that the nazis were running their war machine on this stuff 60 years ago? Remember, if you get too close to the edge, you fall off!

Actually, while they did what they could with coal, it was more limited than many care to believe. If you chack your history, you will find that was a very good reason Rommel was in North Africa ... so they could get the "good stuff".

[Mule]

So the collective opinion of the flat earth society is that this is all a lie?

[DanielDudley]

No Mule, I believe that if you burn a ton of coal, you can make a barrel of gas.

[sammyg2]

It is inneficient and not practical on a big scale. I said that earlier. I provided an example of how bad the economic payoff has been in one of these plants.
I also said that the plants we were talking about did not make liquid, but made either a syngas type of natural gas or hydrogen. Maybe the liquid producing plants could be more economically viable, I don't know one way or the other but I'm very skeptical.

A s a comparison, we have a hydrogen generating plant in our refinery that uses more conventional technology to produce near pure 2000 psi hydrogen and it run and runs and runs, while the gasifier unit sits rusting away. We do that because the conventional hydrogen generating unit is more economical, practical, and reliable. The gasifier is a POS.

You call Harry a member of the flat earth society, but ponder this:
he and I have actual real experience with these units and some of this technology and are at least partially informed on the subject, while you know what you read about them in an article. Yet you ridicle those who have a different opinion.

[Mule]

So the people saying it currently costs $55 a bbl are lying?