TheAntiDoomer wrote:From the UT Arlington website:
http://www.uta.edu/ucomm/researchmagazi ... energy.phpThe Germans successfully converted coal to synthetic oil in World War II using the Fischer-Tropsch process, notes Krishnan Rajeshwar, associate dean of the College of Science and CREST co-director. But even with modern methods, Fischer-Tropsch is still expensive, which is why CREST continues to research an alternative fuel technology using microfluidics.
Drs. Rajeshwar and Billo are convinced that a microfluidic reactor can convert coal to synthetic oil at a fraction of the cost of the German technology. Billo says microrefineries built at a low cost can produce large amounts of synthetic oil in a fraction of the time of existing Fischer-Tropsch refining processes.
Anti, I give you thumbs up for your article post, and I am sure deep down myself like the rest of us here yearn for this to be some semblance of reality "yesterday" in order to mitigate the disaster of consuming finite resources long enough so when the jist is finally up (planet/environment destroyed, resources consumed beyond any economical sustainability) we'll all be dead and buried and it won't matter for you and I anyways.
However, like the Hysterical Applause of a Hydrogen Economy, Solar and Wind, Green Energy Conservation This and That, it's another process that like oil, gas, and nukes is finite and doesn't address the process of sustainability, will accelerate the destruction of our planet's environment, and is not a "game changer." (it's just another product we'll convert to a finite energy to consume and product more material shit for a failing global economy)
I think instead of wasting our time and "more energy" we should just start ripping up Australia for their 200+ year supply of coal, burn it, destroy our planet, and keep the party going. Why waste time finagling with complicated process.
I see is another attempt at my past generation (my parents/their colleagues) doing what they can to move this sham forward enough so they know before they die they carried the ball far enough forward to know at least their children will have nothing to concern themselves with in their lifetime. That process can only be done enough times. No one has seemed to have figured out yet our planetary resources are finite, we cannot consume at the rate we're consuming at, our economy like energy in a mode of "sanity" is also finite, and the final result is the destruction of the planet/environment to a point that we cannot even live on it. I think the reason for this is the answer is so simple and remedial no one can see it. No Doomstead, prepping, hoarding, etc. is going to mitigate this disaster 100% either. Like this process of producing energy, it's only moving the ball forward and not changing the game either.
I say "bring it in" if you want to keep the party going with the same tunes going on the turntable. Trying to explain to the majority that this is simply not possible, well for myself I have given up on doing that. The majority of the world is stupid and the majority always rules.