[Tanada]

With pollitical figures once again advocating more coal use it seemed like a good time to bump this thread.

[peak]

So we could replace about 80% of our driving fuels or about 3 billion barrels by doubling our current nuclear from 100gw to 200gw.

You don't even need to do that. Most re-charging of plug-in hybrid vehicles would occur at night. They do not turn off power plants at night. All of that capacity is available and currently is cheaper. If a large % of the population was charging their vehicle at night, that would actually be a much more efficient use of power plants assets.

They also don't burn as much coal at night. Plus India and China will keep these crude oil prices high even if we (USA) start using electric cars. Electric cars suck, they can't go as fast, expensive, use tons of energy, small, takes hours to fill up, power outages would ruin people, nobody would be able to escape from natural disasters since there's no power. No car maker is even thinking of making such a car.

People are looking towards hydrogen cars over electric ones since they are more greener. Which proves that half of society is retarded.

Batteries need to be replaced often, takes hours to charge, traffic jam and everyone's battery runs dry, speed is to slow, battery gets to hot, just tons of problems associated with battery cars.

[Tanada]

I do find myself wondering what the true cost of Coal to Liquid fuels is. The oft repeated figure I have seen is Lignite to Diesel at 2 bbl/ton yeild ratio. Lignite is a lousy fuel for power plants, very low density compared to harder coal types. Heck half the time it looks like solidified brown mud! According to the EIA TABLE Lignite was selling for $12.07/ton in 2006. Because Lignite is one of those stable comodities that doesn't bounce around a lot in price and is rarely if ever exported because nobody uses it unless they can get it dirt cheap. Hell it costs me more than that for fill dirt if I have a home improvement project!

Anyhow, presuming the Federal Governement, meaning the taxpayers, foot the bill to build CTL plants near all the Lignite resources int he USA so that the operator has no initial capital investment, how much money could they make? From that number you can figure out how much they can afford to invest in building the plants, assuming the Taxpayer are not actually going to do the building.

Any educated guesses? Pupp, Dante?

[FreddyH]

Assuming CTL is economic at $25 - $45/barrel, the expected ramp up should max at 5.4-mbd in 2030 and plateau for several decades.

[derickjeff]

Large supplies of coal. Combined with a long-used proven technology which can convert coal to liquid into a clean pumpable liquid with low burnoff emissions- CTL. Both are now readily available at competitive costs.There are vast available coal deposits in the USA, China, India ,Canada, and Australia, allowing enough liquid coal for scores, maybe hundreds of years, even if demand accelerates.

[Tanada]

Interesting audio podcast about CTL in the USA and South Africa can be heard PODCAST HERE.

Not sure what to make of it as I had to turn the volume up as the speakers is rather soft spoken ad hard for me to hear compared to most others I listen too.

[thompsonlewis]

Coal to Liquids is the generic term used to describe the process of converting a gas into a liquid hydrocarbon product. This technology has already been tested and proven by numerous companies including major oil companies. The combination of UCG and CTL is subsequently called Coal to Liquids (CTL), as the initial energy source is coal.

[thompsonlewis]

Basically, a CTL plant consists of three main processes:

Syngas Production: this process converts a solid, liquid or gas feedstock (usually natural gas) into hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

UCG syngas is already a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, therefore this first process does not apply to Linc Energy.

Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) Synthesis: it is the heart of the process. The syngas is converted into liquid hydrocarbons, through a catalytic reaction using cobalt as catalyst. The syngas reacts with the cobalt, joining together simpler hydrocarbon chains contained in the gas, to create a longer liquid hydrocarbon chain (syncrude).

Refining: the liquid hydrocarbon is then filtered and refined to produce the end product fuels: LPG, Naphtha, Jet fuel and Diesel.

These end products are essentially free of sulphur, olefins, metals, alcohols and aromatics. CTL liquid fuels are superior to conventional refinery fuels.

[Tanada]

Coal to Liquids is the generic term used to describe the process of converting a gas into a liquid hydrocarbon product. This technology has already been tested and proven by numerous companies including major oil companies. The combination of UCG and CTL is subsequently called Coal to Liquids (CTL), as the initial energy source is coal.

For more information visit: Coal to liquids

How much is linc energy paying for all these new account names to be created promoting their company anyhow? They seem to pop up regularly in all the coal related threads on PO.com for the last couple of months.

In this case the statement is wrong, CTL was created a long time before the Fischer-Tropsch process of completely gassifying the coal and then reformulating the gasses into liquid fuels. The earliest forms were coke ovens with petrochemical extraction and recovery that produced large volumes of Kerosene (coal oil), Ammonia (fertilizer), solvants (benzene, naptha), Creosote, Asphalt, and a host of associated chemicals as well as a solid residual fuel, Coke.

[spiritof1976]

What level of CO2 emissions does it give off?

[frankthetank]

Who gives a rats ass about CO2... The technology to do it has been around since the Nazis... It isn't going anywhere. I doubt we have enough coal to even supply 5% of our transportation needs. Here is an idea... cut consumption...

[vision-master]

Coal to liquids plants - I seen an article about them from an 1930's Popular Mechanics Mag.

[outcast]

The Nazis used Coal Liquification in WWII toward the end of the war simply because they had been cut off from all of their other oil supplies, and that's the only way they could power their tanks and other mechanized war machines.

It was more of a desperation measure than anything else.

Actually they used it since the very beginning of the war because their oil supplies weren't enough.


Whether or not something is a net energy loser doesn't really matter, because it is just moving energy from one form into another. If source a is cheap and plentiful but is impractical for what you want to do with it, but source b is expensive, rare and useful, you convert a into b. Losses don't matter so long as a remains plentiful.

[Vogelzang]

In Pennsylvania they are building a coal to diesel plant Ultra clean fuels that will use the mountains of waste coal that are left over from the coal age. In this case, it probably makes sense because the coal isn't being used for anything else.

http://www.rentechinc.com/ and http://www.syntroleum.com/main.aspx produce synthetic fuels.

[energyhoggin]

According to some studies and sources there is over 300 years of coal reserves left just in the United States alone. So instead of economic hell and mass starvation why don't they turn coal into oil. The process of turning coal into oil does require a lot of energy, so why not use nuclear energy so our atmosphere doesn't get clogged up with carbon, it sure beats the other option of mass starvation and etc.

[Arthur75]

A simple calculation leads to US coal reserves representing 40 years of today US petroleum consumption (so using coal for nothing else but liquid fuel production).
Coal liquefaction isn't a very efficient process at all energy wise.

[kpeavey]

WHile we are at it, let's turn lead into gold.

[truecougarblue]

...or we could also go through the older topics where this has been hashed, rehashed, and then 'sploded times too numerous to mention.

Newbie boring, next.