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Yair . . . I just read an energy primer put out by National Geographic in 1980. They published a map showing proposed coal-slurry pipelines.

Did this technology ever happen? I've asked around and its unheard of over here.

Cheers.

I don't know where you are but as I recall the USSR and now Russia uses coal slurry pipelines to move production to a couple of their power plants. You might find this English version of a Russian document about it helpful.

http://cotes-group.com/site/site-files/ ... %BB%29.pdf

Or just look up coal water slurry in Wikipedia.

When I had to attend lectures on technical chemistry around 1990 in Germany, our professor sold a variant of this concept as a solution for the Soviet Union to sell its vast amounts of hard coal in Sibiria:

Some of the coal is locally converted into methanol, then mixed with ground hard coal. The resulting suspension can be pumped. My professor suggested transport by train, but the overall concet was quite similar. The energy density of the suspension is higher than that of hard coal and, therefoer, requires much lower transport capacity and offered in addition advantages for the power plant.

I learned rheology from the principal investigator on this project in the US and inherited the notebooks. No it never went anywhere. Coal slurries get used from time to time in steam generating plants, but nobody pipes coal anywhere.

Yair . . . Thanks to all who replied, I was curious about that one and never thought to check on wiki.

Cheers.

.
Of course , the military had to get into it
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a274852.pdf
nothing much came out of it , it's a good concept but a lousy idea

The 1,580 megawatt Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada had the longest coal slurry pipeline in the world at 273 miles (439 km). From 1969 until 2005, the pipeline used 4,500 acre feet (5,600,000 m3) of water per year to carry about 5 million tons of coal to the plant from the Black Mesa Mine in the northeastern corner of Arizona. The plant was shut down on December 31, 2005 primarily due to Clean Air Act issues, and the slurry line was also shut down.

sparky,

"...it's a good concept but a lousy idea."

Good one.