Montana Governor Promotes Coal to Gasoline Conversion

Break down the refining process of crude oil and you will find just as many environmental hazards. Not to mention that the oil we burn financed 9/11.

I had a feeling this was going to be brought up by someone with pull eventually. It makes sense it was the governor of Montana, since so many ranchers in Montana and Wyoming are being bought out by oil companies. When the oil runs out, their going to go for the next thing- coal. And self-seving politicians (like said governor) will influence bills change standards for fuel to allow this to happen. I encourage ranchers to do as many have started to do in the midwest- HOLD ON TO YOUR MINERAL RIGHTS!!!!
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TreeHugger welcomes comments that are focused on action alternatives to make the world a better place. Holding onto mineral rights, if they are available for purchase, certainly is a good option. Heads high and onward we go.

ADENDUM by author: Coal has very little hydrogen, and the initial gasification step essentially is just using coal's combustion heat to borrow hydrogen from water, assembling it,and some more of the coal's carbon, into methane (CH4), which also called natural gas. This step liberates a great deal of CO2 in the process, much more than would the initial steps of direct natural gas extraction for example. One could just as easily use the methane produced from gasification as a transit fuel, or use the combustion heat to generate hydrogen for use as a direct vehicle fuel. Instead, this gasification/liquifaction technology match adds more carbon still, sufficient to turn methane into liquid fuels that work in today's autos.

The process for making fuel from biomass is so much simpler than that of coal or oil, I can do it in my back yard with home made equipment. Maybe that's why the government likes oil and coal so much. It takes the ability to produce energy away from the people and puts it in the hands of a few powerful energy companies who pretty much buy the government they want. Any other Nazi technology the govt' can adopt? How about ideology? I wouldnt be suprised.

Coal to gasoline refining can be done much more cleanly now using heat from pebble bed nuclear reactors and a sealed refining system.

Jim Holm

www.JimHolm.com
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I understand the rationale behind Jim's statement and see its intrinsic practicality: e.g. coal need not be burned to gassify coal, canceling the crudest part of the coal to gas to fuel process sequence. However, from a public relations standpoint this dog will never hunt. A quarter of our population thinks that NASA staged the moon walk and is terrified of anything related to the nuclear energy concept. What else would we expect after a cold ware lasting 50 years. THe appeal of having a nuclear generator AND a coal processing plant in their city elevates the NIMBY factorexponentially. In areas where such technology might be welcome, like the high plains of Wyoming, gasoline pipelines are scarce. Unless I am missing something big, it seems like an impossible hurdle.

Keep in mind that underground coal gasification (UCG)technology is moving ahead where coal is gasified in-situ or in place without extraction or mining. The UCG product gas comes to the surface, cleaned up and can be converted into liquids or for power generation or both in the same facility. The undeground cavities made by the UCG process can be used to store carbon dioxide.

Engineers do read this stuff, even chemical engineers. The process you show has some extra complexity:
- One of the advantages of gasifying coal is that the gas can be cleaned, instead of doing coal cleaning. Sulfur or sulfuric acid can be produced as a valuable by-product.
- You don't have to turn coal into methane, the coal gasification product (CO & H2) is what you want for synthesis reactions. Methane actually has to be converted to this for the Fischer-Tropsch process.
- Simple cuts of diesel, gasoline & LPG can be produced without going through another refining stage.
Extra note: Coal is gasified for many chemical sythesis reactions already, eg. Eastman has a very large coal gasification plant for chemicals manufacture.
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All good points and sensibly presented. The process outlined in the original post reflected the details from the one example. Admitedly, that was all trhough the filter of web PR and my outline is theoretical therefore As you say by your example, there are probably some very sensible and efficient ways to move forward. Thanks for pointing out the big areas for improvement.

As for which is better, cleaning the coal or cleaning the coal gas in process: the same amount of waste minerals and metals have to be managed, and the gross waste production is identical. Matter is conserved.

Scrubbing sulfur from product gas and air emission train, for example, will result in a "co-product" that still needs further purification and produces its own waste streams, some of which may be toxic and not economically useful. In other words, there is no away.

Can you imagine the impacts on sulfuric acid commodity pricing if a large segment of our nation's liquid fuel were produced from coal? To the extent that the economics of this process hinge on co-product sales, it's success in the market place will be as complex and problematic as the chlorocaustics business. This concept is especially important when extended to the CO2 production: e.g. sequestration. It seems to me (I've no numbers to back this up jsut now.) that the debate then comes down to the amount of waste carbon that needs to be managed uneconomically per Joule of electricity produced. The most carbon efficient process should win, and without government subsidy. Per your example, are you certain that there are no direct or indirect subsidies for the Eastman process as it currently exists? If not, then that is very hopeful evidence of a postive opportunity.

Where can I go to get independent and factual information about this process to convert coals to fuels of the day: gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, hydrogen for fuel cells.

Our Governor Manchin of West Virguinia has set up a fast track effort to get one or more of these plants built so we can use WV's coal.

As a member of the WV Public Energy Authority, I am being asked to get involved, and I need solid technical information and independent sources.

Frankly, I have concerns about how clean this process is and what will be the emissions of greenhouse gases, toixic metals, and NOX and SOX to air and water as well as adding to the already horrific overloaded network of coal sludge waste ponds. What should be expected. Where is there a history of a successful and clean operation?

I appreciate anyones guidance to credible sources that are not hype.

Thank you

p.s. Solar and other renewable energies are so much simpler and clean.

Allan Tweddle
Charleston West Virginia
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Eastman Chemical in Tennessee I believe received a Federal grant from USDOE to build and run a prototype coal to gas faciltiy that uses the gaseous stream as a chemical feedstock. If I were in your position I would immediately look for a travel budget, see if I could get an invite for a small tour, and be sure to ask to have the USDOE project officers and senior researchers meet you either at the site or later. Prior to that, I'd do my homework by searching news articles from the local community and after the tour talk to local environmental groups about the larger picture you mentioned.

I recall reading once that the German sites used during WWII for coal to gas to liquid were severely contaminated, and posed a problem for re-development in East Germany. I do n ot know how those old versions of the process compare in cleanliness compared to what the Eastman one is, but the solid and liquid waste generation rates are not to be overlooked. For added perspective, consider that "coal gas" was once the lighting fuel of choice for the Victorian mansions in cities like NY, Boston, Philadelphia,a nd Chicago. Abandoned quickly because of the fatal accidents associated with the carbon monoxide content of that crude product, it also left a legacy of highly toxic brownfields. Most of them were never cleaned up really.

Other than that, the only choice I know of would be to travel to South Africa, whcih would be very expensive. PErhaps the USDOE NERL staff may have a better suggestion. A visit there might also be helpful.

"Anonymous" from WVa might want to devote some of his travel budget to visiting/touring the huge (16,000 ton/day) coal gasifcation at Buleah No. Dak. That facility's primary products include "natural" gas (fuel), ammonium sulfate (fertilizer), and liquid carbon dioxide (sold/used for enhancing oil recovery from existing oil fields). It wasn't designed to convert the coal to transportation-type fuels (gas/diesel/methanol?) but it does do a fine job of dealing with gasification's "environmental issues". To learn more, contact www.basinelectric.com.
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Thanks for the tip. Didn't even know that one existed! However, I not too excited about ammonium sulfate being spread around as a nitrogen source. Excess in the soil will be denitrified by soil bacteria and liberating SOX. Anyone know if this is an actual reaction pathway?

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=4355141

At the referenced site & page you'll find a citation for a Tech Report circa 1970 on the coal-to-gasoline conversion project done for the feds by Consolidation Coal, circa 1967. While the report says the plant "failed," in actuality the first relatively successful "production run" that showed the process could be done in a "process" rather than simply as a "batch," the way the Germans had done it during W.W.II, got the plant immediately closed down. President Lyndon Johnson was from an oil state (Texas) and scuttlebutt at the Office of Coal Research was that NO WAY did the Big Oil men want the coal operators horning in on their little energy addiction monopoly. In a very few months, Continental Oil bought Consol, (Consolidation Coal), and now Phillips has merged with Continental, i.e., Conoco-Phillips. NOW we see "new" coal liquifaction legislation and $$$.
Somebody ought to research the Consol project at Cresap, WV., and learn REALLY why it closed down.

I dont know of any way to convert sulfate ion in nature to something else such as SOX. There are ways to convert sulfate to sulfide biochemically with bacteria. And sulfate-reducing bacteria predominate in marine sediments.
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The reduction can go all the way to H2S from so-called "iron" or "sulfer" anaerobes. Very slow but consistent reaction. I've been around waste piles of elemental sulfer where you can smell the H2S emanating. I'm stretching my recall here but I think that photochemical smog can take liberated H2S to SOX. Otherwise it would require combustion as you indicate.

Why not just use unbelievably simple anaerobic digestion of animal and plant waste -- or landfill gas -- to provide the methane feedstock for the Fischer-Tropsch process to that to create other hydrocarbon products, if you absolutely must have them? The anaerobic digestion process will take practically any organic waste, and so long as the mixture of nitrogen and carbon is even close to correct, and the temperature is kept warm (a portion of the methane can be used to warm it, or passive solar can be used), it will provide copious methane and excellent fertillizer as outputs.

I never could figure out why hog farms still have open-lagoon aerobic manure pools, when a simple floating skin of plastic on the surface will turn it into a fuel-producing anaerobic composter, which emits a fraction of the smell and pollutes far less, and why animal farms do not automatically embrace composting technology. Landfills now use this gas to run electrical generating plants -- why won't others learn?

---Gwen

Gwen,

Landfill gas and anaerobic digestion are indeed acceptable and practiced techniques of electricity generation, but their power output is nowhere close to meeting a significant portion of the demand of the nation. There isalso the added problem of transporting the organic matter to a facility for generating power.

However, research is currently being performed by universities (Princeton and U of N. Dakota primarily), private industry, and government investigating the use of biomass in coal gasification technologies.

i have research coal convert into crude i lison your compny is made synthetic gasoline please give me
sume information how making syn gasoline
your cecerly
mr. kj zala from india

At this point, with oil at $135/barrel, the USA desperately needs technology like this, along with all the "green" energy we can afford, like solar and wind. For the SO2 problem, the solution may be to convert it to CaSO4 (aka gypsum / sheetrock / drywall). Let the CO2 go, rather than wasting energy by forcing it underground. Eventually, it will be incorporated into plants through photosynthesis, and perhaps become coal and oil for future generations to burn.

Dig today, dig tomorrow, dig until it is all gone (oil, gas, everything).
Start building Nuclear now.
Start building hydro-electric now.
Start building wind power now.
Start building solar now.

The US runs on energy (cheaper is better).
There is no such thing as global warming (check the facts).

I won't apologize for once being the strongest national in the world.

Good article.

"Efficiency is where the game needs to start."

Conservation is the efficient use of our natural resources. According to Schweitzer the first step of his energy policy is conservation. He believes that we can reduce 1 billion barrels a year through conservation. He says it's 16% of the total, and we already did it once during the 1970s.

"We ought to have tax credits for anybody across America that demonstrates their ability to decrease consumption."
-Gov. Brian Schweitzer (Oct. 13, 2006)

If you're suggesting that because coal-gas-liquid harms the environment we should wait for something better and keep using foreign oil, I respectfully disagree.

We need to do this as a short term measure to maintain our economy which is presently based on crude oil energy. But, along with coal to gasoline conversion there must be a vigorous program to convert the entire infrastructure to alternative renewable clean energy based processes such as wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, battery technology, manadates for high mileage fuel standards, energy conservation, hydrogen based infrastructures.

Chances are that we will need to use coal as gas for a while, but that does not solve energy problems in the long term. Even if global warming were not caused or accelerated by the use of fossil fuels, there is still a limited supply.

For our day to day driving needs, plug in hybrid electric vehicles are probably going to be the best option for the conservation of fossil fules in the near term. Most areas get enough sun during the summer months to support solar thermal plants that could provide baseline power.

Biomass can also be coverted into alcohols, or even gasoline, using a process that is similar to the process of turning coal into gasoline (without the mining). For that matter, our non-recyclable, burnable trash can be used do do the same thing as well.

If a gasification process were used to create syngas from biomass, and then ethanol and gasoline from the syngas, food crops would not need to be used as fuel crops.

We can also create methane for use as a fuel as part of our own sewage treatment processes. I don't think it's a big stretch to think that we could do this as part of the waste treatment process for farms as well as human waste treatment plants.

There are plenty of other ways of harvesting energy. I'm just throwing out a few ideas. These might not entirely replace coal and oil, but they can reduce our dependance on them.

While I did not read all the commentary, it is NOW TIME to bring Tesla's technology on line without further diversion. Coal is not the answer, by any methods of extracting it. Nuclear energy is NOT safe, particularly in earthquake times were are in and will continue in. And we hurt the further progress of our planet in using nuclear, because the purpose of the elements used, it to decompose rock into soil. It belongs in the ground, period.

I will leave you all to research what TEsla brought that should have been used instead of any carbon fuels. He gave safe technology to create also the heat needed to make fine steels, instead of coal.

SAdly a company after his name released the "tesla car" recently and it still has a ton of batteries on it and requires plugging into the grid. Tesla gave the dynamo which in its most simplified version some of you older folks remember on your bicycle. (and used in improved form on bicycles in Europe now). The dyanamo and tesla coil will generate all the needed electricity without an fuel whatsoever. And without any pollution. Time to stop on the assorted alternatives that will NOT serve the planet, including hydrogen fuel which in a couple hundred years could deplete our planet serverly of water and requires nuclear to produce it in quantity. NO NO and NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Take care, Candace

Today our economy is being shutdown from the high price of oil. We can argue about the reasons for the high price, but the results are clear. Jobs are being lost, companies are going bankrupt from high fuel costs, and families and people are being strained immensely. We must do something to get control of this situation beside shoot down every viable proposal. I started my career in nuclear power where we were going to build safe cheap nuclear power plants. The arguments against nuclear power have destroyed the nuclear industry and the lights will go out in this country before companies are allowed to build another nuclear power plant.
I am not going to argue for or against nuclear power. I am going to argue that arguing against every viable solution to our country's energy problem will destroy this country.
I lived on a sailboat for many years, and I am probably more familiar with solar power and wind power than most. Wind and Solar are great renewable forms of energy, but the amount of energy which can be produced at a reasonable cost from these is very small. Wind generators and solar panels are very very expensive.
We must find viable energy alternatives that can deliver energy at an affordable cost.
Many of the large oil companies encourage the development of technologies which are either very expensive or too far in the future to make any difference. Hyrdogen cars and fuel cells are a good example. Oil companies do not want to see any competition to their monoply
If coal to gasificaiton plants can be built with environmental safeguards, then we must build them. We can not afford to do nothing, and we can not afford to argue against every proposed solution. We must find some way to deliver affordable clean power in this country, while we still have a few jobs left in this country.

I was at a meeting in the late 1970's set up by Senator byrd of west virginia which involced 2 src plants, one in Morgantown W.Va. and the other i think in Beckley. the property was bought and engineers from exxon were brought in. The coal companies committed 2 million tons to this project it was scrapped because the price ot oil dropped below 10 Dollars a barrel, 80% of the energy generated in the east is from coal and all power plants in my area are putting on scrubbers to eliminate so2. For those who don't believe coal is the answer, turn out your lights for a coup;e days

Is Calif buying carbon credits for all the pollution from all the fires they have. They are big net polluters every year.

I thought Shell was already doing this in the U.S. They had a long GTL commercial that says they did during the Atlanta Olympics.