The Feasibility of Coal to Oil for the US.
The Enlightenment
From the CIA world fact book it emerges that the US consumes 37Kw.Hr
of electricity per person per day.
I postulated what would happen if we converted the present
fossil-fueled power stations to nuclear (probably the IFR Integral
Fuel Reactor) and reassigned the fossil fuels previously consumed in
making electricity (mainly coal) to Coal to Gas technology?
About 20% of the US electricity supply is already nuclear and I assume
another 20% is hydroelectric or renewable energy on a small scale that
cannot be converted to nuclear. So 60% can be converted to nuclear
Daily KW.Hr usage which can be converted to nuclear = 60% x 37KW.Hr =
22.2KW.Hr
Assuming a 40% conversion efficiency the number of kilowatt hours
consumed as raw coal to make this amount of electricity is:
1/40% = 2.5. Therefore 2.5 x 22.2KW.Hr = 55.5KW.Hr of coal.
Conversion efficiency of Coal to Oil Technolgy is up to 71%.
Therefore the 55.5KW.Hr of coal burned per day to make 22.2KW.Hr of
electricity could be converted to 55.5KW.Hr x 70% = 38.85KW.Hr of oil.
As each liter of oil contains 8.5KW.Hr of energy this is equivalent to
38.85/8.5 = 4.57 Liters per day.
The daily US consumtion of crude is about 8L per day per person.
(Australia is 6L)
Therefore I conclude that coal to oil is a viable option for the US.
The two processes for coal to oil are Fischer Tropsch in which coal is
converted to syngas by mixing with steam and oxygen, desulpherized and
then converted to oil by a fischer-tropsch reaction. This process has
improved enormously. The process was used for low grade (automotve
gasoline) and high-grade diesels by the Germans in WW2 but can produce
good gasoline today. Alternatively the syngas can be converted to
methanol and then converted to gasoline via mobils MTG (Methanol to
Gasoline) process.
The other processes are forms of hydrogenation in which coal/oil
slurry is hydrogenated under pressure. Today processes are more
efficient than the Pervious Bergius Hydrogenation process used by the
German in WW2. Bergius provided higher grade gasolines for the
Luftwaffes piston engined aircraft than FT could and it also worked
well with low grade brown coal.
I also am certain that the effective carbon utilization of both
processses can be enormously improved by the supplement of oxygen and
hydrogen generated by electrolysis rather than making these on site.
The use of gas to oil technology would appear to increase CO2
emissions about 10% while the use of coal to oil would increase CO2
emissions by 80% over using crude oil. By using coal normaly used for
electricity production we do not add any more CO2 to the atmosphere.
By supplementing the processes with electrolytic hydrogen we could
even reduce CO2 emisions.
The first coal to oil plant in the US may be built by this company.
http://www.ultracleanfuels.com/main.htm
Kimmo Klemola
answer for cars in the future. I think that the abundancy of coal and
the simple product, gasoline, which makes it possible to use the same
engines and infrastructure as today, are good enough reasons to choose
coal to oil (rather than hydrogen). Why FT has been neglected is the
nowadays so popular CO2 thinking and the low price of oil.
Kimmo
Mike Harrington
After the peak year of petroleum extraction, there will be more coal oil
processed than today, but it is not a good substitute for the cheap oil we
are accustomed to. There are no perpetual motion machines, and any
substitute for oil wells, most notably ethanol and coal, will see their cost
of energy inputs rise when oil and gas well depletion forces the price of
all energy up. And coal is not an infinite resource either. While you
increase coal oil production, there will simultaneously need to be an
increased reliance on all other energy sources, including coal, to make up
for natural gas depletion.
Tapping into unexploited giant gas fields in the Rocky Mountains and the
Arctic will buy some time, but even with them gas well production much
beyond 2020 is problematic, since gas wells decline precipitously once their
peak is hit, unlike oil wells which decline at a rate of about 2-3% per
year. Polar and Rocky Mountain gas also involve some pretty expensive
pipeline and other logistical problems. Some domestic gas supplies will be
made up by LNG tankers, but that is not cheap either, since liquefied gas
doesn't store BTU's as densely as crude. I also think there is a short term
continental supply problem that is due to declining production of existing
gas wells. Under the title "Natural Gas (2)," Policy Pete
http://qv3.com/policypete/policypete.htm shows a gas well production
decline of 28% in 2003. Basically, the drilling rigs are working harder,
but discovering smaller gas deposits that decline faster, in many cases in
as little as two years. Either in the long or short term, in other words,
with or without Rocky Mountain and Polar development, natural gas does not
have a rosy future in the US.
So the nuclear energy is largely already spoken for. Ultimately just about
all of today's gas-fired power plants will have to be replaced by coal and
nuclear, and that's without any increased electricity use.
"The Enlightenment" <bern...@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:39556695.03052...@posting.google.com...
The Enlightenment
"Mike Harrington" <mi...@pccmph.com> wrote in message
news:3ed20...@corp-news.newsgroups.com...
> Coal oil has been around for a century and is not a cheap source of
energy.
I believe the break even point is $32/barrel, though I've heard of as low as
$22. Certainly the point is well below $50/barrel.
Fischer Tropsch Gas to Liquids is competitive. How much more could coal and
a coal to syn gas gassifier cost?
> After the peak year of petroleum extraction, there will be more coal oil
> processed than today, but it is not a good substitute for the cheap oil we
> are accustomed to.
I can see the price going up by no more than 66% to say $40/barrel. For
countries like the US this will be ameliorated by the fact that it is not
imported.
> There are no perpetual motion machines, and any
> substitute for oil wells, most notably ethanol and coal, will see their
cost
> of energy inputs rise when oil and gas well depletion forces the price of
> all energy up. And coal is not an infinite resource either. While you
> increase coal oil production, there will simultaneously need to be an
> increased reliance on all other energy sources, including coal, to make up
> for natural gas depletion.
Fossile fuels certainly should not be wasted on generating electricity.
Nuclear is well suited to this.
>
> Tapping into unexploited giant gas fields in the Rocky Mountains and the
> Arctic will buy some time, but even with them gas well production much
> beyond 2020 is problematic, since gas wells decline precipitously once
their
> peak is hit, unlike oil wells which decline at a rate of about 2-3% per
> year. Polar and Rocky Mountain gas also involve some pretty expensive
> pipeline and other logistical problems. Some domestic gas supplies will
be
> made up by LNG tankers, but that is not cheap either, since liquefied gas
> doesn't store BTU's as densely as crude. I also think there is a short
term
> continental supply problem that is due to declining production of existing
> gas wells. Under the title "Natural Gas (2)," Policy Pete
I'm not sure the LNG is all that more expensive to transport than coal? The
cost is in the liquifaction. The small amount of evaporation powers the
vessel.
> http://qv3.com/policypete/policypete.htm shows a gas well production
> decline of 28% in 2003. Basically, the drilling rigs are working harder,
> but discovering smaller gas deposits that decline faster, in many cases in
> as little as two years. Either in the long or short term, in other words,
> with or without Rocky Mountain and Polar development, natural gas does not
> have a rosy future in the US.
>
> So the nuclear energy is largely already spoken for. Ultimately just
about
> all of today's gas-fired power plants will have to be replaced by coal and
> nuclear, and that's without any increased electricity use.
>
As I suggest the best strategy would be ALL fossile power plants must being
shifted to nuclear leaving coal for oil snythesis and gas for domestic and
industrial.
The Enlightenment
"Kimmo Klemola" <kkle...@lut.fi> wrote in message
news:3ED20369...@lut.fi...
> You have the point. Fischer-Tropsch and coal to oil are (probably) the
> answer for cars in the future. I think that the abundancy of coal and
> the simple product, gasoline, which makes it possible to use the same
> engines and infrastructure as today, are good enough reasons to choose
> coal to oil (rather than hydrogen). Why FT has been neglected is the
> nowadays so popular CO2 thinking and the low price of oil.
>
> Kimmo
>
You might find this interesting. It is on extracted CO2 from the air to
synthesise hydrocarbons.
http://www.refuelnet.de/content/refuelnet/pdf/CO-CO2_98.pdf
I've been looking on break even prices for coal to oil technology. All of
the work I have found relates to the similar prcesses used for Gas to Oil.
They both use Fischer Tropsch with syngas (CO + 2H2) the only difference is
the way they produce snygas. Is coal really that more expensive a source of
syngas than natural gas?
saict
> The Feasibility of Coal to Oil for the US.
>
> From the CIA world fact book it emerges that the US consumes 37Kw.Hr
> of electricity per person per day.
>
> I postulated what would happen if we converted the present
> fossil-fueled power stations to nuclear (probably the IFR Integral
> Fuel Reactor) and reassigned the fossil fuels previously consumed in
> making electricity (mainly coal) to Coal to Gas technology?
>
> About 20% of the US electricity supply is already nuclear and I assume
> another 20% is hydroelectric or renewable energy on a small scale that
> cannot be converted to nuclear. So 60% can be converted to nuclear
Hydroelectric and other account for about 10% of the total US
production. See for example
http://www.geocities.com/brf116/coal-natgas.html.
> Daily KW.Hr usage which can be converted to nuclear = 60% x 37KW.Hr =
> 22.2KW.Hr
>
> Assuming a 40% conversion efficiency the number of kilowatt hours
> consumed as raw coal to make this amount of electricity is:
> 1/40% = 2.5. Therefore 2.5 x 22.2KW.Hr = 55.5KW.Hr of coal.
>
> Conversion efficiency of Coal to Oil Technolgy is up to 71%.
Who has reached that level of efficiency? That's not a hostile
question. I'm genuinely interested in where you're getting your
information.
> Therefore the 55.5KW.Hr of coal burned per day to make 22.2KW.Hr of
> electricity could be converted to 55.5KW.Hr x 70% = 38.85KW.Hr of oil.
>
> As each liter of oil contains 8.5KW.Hr of energy this is equivalent to
> 38.85/8.5 = 4.57 Liters per day.
>
> The daily US consumtion of crude is about 8L per day per person.
> (Australia is 6L)
>
> Therefore I conclude that coal to oil is a viable option for the US.
>
> The two processes for coal to oil are Fischer Tropsch in which coal is
> converted to syngas by mixing with steam and oxygen, desulpherized and
> then converted to oil by a fischer-tropsch reaction. This process has
> improved enormously. The process was used for low grade (automotve
> gasoline) and high-grade diesels by the Germans in WW2 but can produce
> good gasoline today. Alternatively the syngas can be converted to
> methanol and then converted to gasoline via mobils MTG (Methanol to
> Gasoline) process.
>
> The other processes are forms of hydrogenation in which coal/oil
> slurry is hydrogenated under pressure. Today processes are more
> efficient than the Pervious Bergius Hydrogenation process used by the
> German in WW2. Bergius provided higher grade gasolines for the
> Luftwaffes piston engined aircraft than FT could and it also worked
> well with low grade brown coal.
Of the two, which is most efficient?
> I also am certain that the effective carbon utilization of both
> processses can be enormously improved by the supplement of oxygen and
> hydrogen generated by electrolysis rather than making these on site.
>
> The use of gas to oil technology would appear to increase CO2
> emissions about 10% while the use of coal to oil would increase CO2
> emissions by 80% over using crude oil. By using coal normaly used for
> electricity production we do not add any more CO2 to the atmosphere.
> By supplementing the processes with electrolytic hydrogen we could
> even reduce CO2 emisions.
>
> The first coal to oil plant in the US may be built by this company.
> http://www.ultracleanfuels.com/main.htm
They'll be racing against William Mook. :)
Kimmo Klemola
be low, because they have the best and proven F-T technology with very
low cost coal.
Natural gas must be very suitable for the syngas production because of
its purity, good C to H ratio... Coal has a lot of impurities, sulfur,
etc. However, there is lack of natural gas in some decades and that is
why coal should be chosen for Fischer-Tropsch. The main raw material for
the U.S. chemical industry is natural gas and in order to maintain this
situation natural gas reserves should not be used in energy generation
(heat, electricity, gasoline, hydrogen).
There are newer statistics, but I had the book of Weissermel and Arpe
from 1993 on my reach. It says about the fossil reserves:
- natural gas 60-70 years (proven)
- coal. "A study by the Leningrad :) Geological Institute reached a
similar conclusion: even at the current rate of growth, the minable hard
and brown coal reserves would be adequate for at least 5000 years."
- oil 40 years (proven)
So the problem is not there in the next quarter, next year or next
decade. However, USA's demand of NG exceeded the productive capacity a
year ago and despite all the efforts to increase the capacity, the
demand will be 15% higher in 2010 (Hydrocarbon Processing 3/2003). It is
easy to predict high natural gas prices also in the future at least in
USA. Also it can be predicted that Alaska will not be untouched and LNG
ships will be sailing Atlantic Ocean.
As a chemical engineer I would like to prolong the natural gas era as
long as possible and save NG to chemical industry (food, medicine,
construction etc). Hydrogen powered cars are a real threat for NG.
Luckily it seems that H2 use will be limited to small scale applications
such as laptop computers.
Kimmo
william mook
Interesting pointers. I find the Department of Energy Energy
Information Administration a reliable source of information about
energy use in the US.
As far as 'cleanenergy' is concerned, I visited their web site, and
didn't find much of substance. While I applaud their efforts, and
support their vision - I find two troubling things about what they're
proposing;
(i) They're seeking government assistance - this implies all the
energy in their synfuel comes from carbon sources- which makes them
uneconomic requiring government assistance to make work;
(ii) They haven't explicitly shown their process, but have referred to
existing proven processes - which again means uneconomic conversion.
It takes 2 to 3 tons of coal to make a barrel of oil using
ultraclean's process. That's because they're using the coal energy to
energize the oil.
My process makes five barrels of oil from a single ton of coal.
That's because 9/10th of the energy in the resulting synthetic fuel
comes from sunlight!
So, in the ultraclean process you're spending money on equipment to
take $60 worth of coal to make $30 worth of fuels.
In my process you're spending money on equipment to take $20 worth of
coal to make $150 worth of fuels.
Ultraclean's process requires government subsidy to work, and as more
people use the fuel, more subsidy is needed.
My process requires bank financing of profits to work. As more people
use the fuel, more profits are made, allowing expansion of self
funding.
So, all I must do is buy coal and sell oil, and finance the difference
in price to pay for the equipment - without government subsidy,
without handouts of any sort.
The Enlightenment
Black coles, like Anthracite, have about 30MJ/Kg while brown cole has
about 13MJ/Kg. The waste coal ultraclean is using (whatever that is)
would have a very low energy content? So I think you would have to
compensate for that. Fischer Trposch is about 60% to as mucch as 70%
efficient.
>
> My process makes five barrels of oil from a single ton of coal.
> That's because 9/10th of the energy in the resulting synthetic fuel
> comes from sunlight!
1 Kg oil 40MJ
1 Kg black coal 30MJ
So suppose you could create 1.165KG of oil out of 1KG of carbon and
0.165Kg hydrogen to get 47MJ energy assuming that you manage
stoichiometric reactions and near 95% conversions (not unrealistic)
Without supplementing hydrogen the best processes manage 70%
efficiency which would give us only 20MJ of oil from a KG of coal as
apposed to 47MJ by hydrogen supplementation.
Still the use of renewably generated hydrogen for coal to oil
synthesis is an very important option we should persue.
The Enlightenment
> > The Feasibility of Coal to Oil for the US.
> >
> > From the CIA world fact book it emerges that the US consumes 37Kw.Hr
> > of electricity per person per day.
> >
> > I postulated what would happen if we converted the present
> > fossil-fueled power stations to nuclear (probably the IFR Integral
> > Fuel Reactor) and reassigned the fossil fuels previously consumed in
> > making electricity (mainly coal) to Coal to Gas technology?
> >
> > About 20% of the US electricity supply is already nuclear and I assume
> > another 20% is hydroelectric or renewable energy on a small scale that
> > cannot be converted to nuclear. So 60% can be converted to nuclear
>
> Hydroelectric and other account for about 10% of the total US
> production. See for example
> http://www.geocities.com/brf116/coal-natgas.html.
>
> > Daily KW.Hr usage which can be converted to nuclear = 60% x 37KW.Hr =
> > 22.2KW.Hr
> >
> > Assuming a 40% conversion efficiency the number of kilowatt hours
> > consumed as raw coal to make this amount of electricity is:
> > 1/40% = 2.5. Therefore 2.5 x 22.2KW.Hr = 55.5KW.Hr of coal.
> >
> > Conversion efficiency of Coal to Oil Technolgy is up to 71%.
>
> Who has reached that level of efficiency? That's not a hostile
> question. I'm genuinely interested in where you're getting your
> information.
Fischer Tropsch is probably running at 60% or more presently. Some
processes are reaching 75%. You can revue the processes here:
http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/coal/cfft/cct/pub/techs_status.shtml
TSR010 Coal Liquefaction (DTI/Pub URN 99/1120)
Disadvantages of the Technology
• Liquefaction processes typically achieve an energy conversion
(% CV of
the input fuel converted to finished products) of 65-70% (direct
liquefaction) and 55% (indirect liquefaction).
• Converting coal to transportation fuels results in ~7-10 times
as much
CO2 being emitted, compared with converting crude oil. This increase
in CO2 emissions at the processing stage has the effect of raising
overall
CO2 emissions from transport by ~50%, compared with transport based
on conventional, refined petroleum products.
>
> > Therefore the 55.5KW.Hr of coal burned per day to make 22.2KW.Hr of
> > electricity could be converted to 55.5KW.Hr x 70% = 38.85KW.Hr of oil.
> >
> > As each liter of oil contains 8.5KW.Hr of energy this is equivalent to
> > 38.85/8.5 = 4.57 Liters per day.
> >
> > The daily US consumtion of crude is about 8L per day per person.
> > (Australia is 6L)
> >
> > Therefore I conclude that coal to oil is a viable option for the US.
> >
> > The two processes for coal to oil are Fischer Tropsch in which coal is
> > converted to syngas by mixing with steam and oxygen, desulpherized and
> > then converted to oil by a fischer-tropsch reaction. This process has
> > improved enormously. The process was used for low grade (automotve
> > gasoline) and high-grade diesels by the Germans in WW2 but can produce
> > good gasoline today. Alternatively the syngas can be converted to
> > methanol and then converted to gasoline via mobils MTG (Methanol to
> > Gasoline) process.
> >
> > The other processes are forms of hydrogenation in which coal/oil
> > slurry is hydrogenated under pressure. Today processes are more
> > efficient than the Pervious Bergius Hydrogenation process used by the
> > German in WW2. Bergius provided higher grade gasolines for the
> > Luftwaffes piston engined aircraft than FT could and it also worked
> > well with low grade brown coal.
>
> Of the two, which is most efficient?
FT is less capital intensive I believe and is more suited to linear
chains such as diesel and kerosenes but these days prodces good
gasoline. A FT like process that works the same but makes methanol
via the lurgi reaction instead of oils out of the syngas can then
upgrate the methanol to gasoline. MTG ran in NZ for several years but
the speciality chemicals it makes are worth more than gasoline so the
plant has shifted production.
Hydrogenation is more capital intensive but more efficient and also
produces more gasoline. The steel requirements for the Germans'
Bergius process were large. The process opperated at 7000psi. (
Though an advantage was that the pipes and vessels were often bomb
proof! ) Present hydrgenation processes seem to opperate at half the
pressure and have reduced the steel requirements.
>
> > I also am certain that the effective carbon utilization of both
> > processses can be enormously improved by the supplement of oxygen and
> > hydrogen generated by electrolysis rather than making these on site.
> >
> > The use of gas to oil technology would appear to increase CO2
> > emissions about 10% while the use of coal to oil would increase CO2
> > emissions by 80% over using crude oil. By using coal normaly used for
> > electricity production we do not add any more CO2 to the atmosphere.
> > By supplementing the processes with electrolytic hydrogen we could
> > even reduce CO2 emisions.
> >
> > The first coal to oil plant in the US may be built by this company.
> > http://www.ultracleanfuels.com/main.htm
>
> They'll be racing against William Mook. :)
Good luck to him. The additional CO2 burden seems to be only 50% not
80%.
brianb
> take $60 worth of coal to make $30 worth of fuels.
>
> In my process you're spending money on equipment to take $20 worth of
> coal to make $150 worth of fuels.
>
> Ultraclean's process requires government subsidy to work, and as more
> people use the fuel, more subsidy is needed.
>
> My process requires bank financing of profits to work. As more people
> use the fuel, more profits are made, allowing expansion of self
> funding.
>
> So, all I must do is buy coal and sell oil, and finance the difference
> in price to pay for the equipment - without government subsidy,
> without handouts of any sort.
When are you going to get your solar + coal -> fuel up and running? And where?
william mook
energy from coal to produce the hydrogen. Fischer-Tropsch, H-Coal,
Solvent Recovery Cycle, you name it - all are variations on a theme.
Basically you're using energy in coal to generate hydrogen, and then
using hydrogen and more coal this time as a carbon source to generate
hydrocarbons.
My process derives hydrogen from renewable sources and observes that
once you have cost-effective hydrogen, its highest best use is as a
means to convert carbon sources to hydrocarbon fuels. Why? Because
our world runs on hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbon fuels have about 2.1 hydrogens per carbon atom.
Therefore, for every 12 kg of carbon my process must make 2.1 kg of
hydrogen and generate 14.1 kg of hydrocarbons.
High carbon content coals have 80% of their mass carbon. Low carbon
content coals have 60% of their mass carbon. So, this translates to
15 kg to 20 kg of coal needed for each 14.1 kg of hydrocarbon fuels
with the addition of 2.1 kg of hydrogen.
Each kg of hydrogen requires 140 MJ of energy to produce - with
efficiencies being what they are this translates to 200 MJ of solar
energy needed to process a kg of hydrogen. So, 420 MJ is needed to
convert 15 to 20 kg of coal into 14.1 kg of liquid fuels. That's a
solar requirement of 29.78 MJ/kg of synthetic crude.
Liquid fuels contain 6 × 10^9 J per barrel. A barrel contains 42
gallons of liquid. According to;
http://www.etcentre.org/main/e/db/oil_intr.htm#den
crude oil weighs 8 lbs per gallon, so a barrel of crude weighs 336 lbs
or 152.7 kg. Thus, crude oil has 39.29 MJ per kg. This is nearly 10
MJ per kg *more* than in the hydrogen. Where does this energy come
from? The coal!
One ton of coal will produce 640.9 kg to 854.5 kg of solar derived
synthetic fuels depending on carbon content. This is equivalent to
4.1 to 5.6 barrels of oil per ton of coal.
In these fuels 75% to 82% of the total energy release comes from
sunlight, despite the fact you're using coal.
Now, traditional coal-to-oil processes take the energy contained in
coal which ranges from 15 MJ to 27 MJ per kg, and makes hydrogen by
burning measured quantities of water, coal and air together. At 18%
efficiency, this means that only 2.5 MJ to 4.7 MJ per kg of coal, ends
up in the synthetic oil. Since each kg of synthetic oil has 39.29 MJ
per kg, this means that 8 kg and 15 kg of coal must be BURNT to
process an additional 0.7 kg of coal into a kg of oil. Thus you need
9 kg and 16 kg of coal to make a kg of oil. So, between 1.5 ton and
2.5 ton of coal into a barrel of oil.
TRADITIONAL PROCESS: 1.5 - 2.5 @$20 = $30 to $50 input
MOK PROCESS: 0.2 @$20 = $4 input
The Enlightenment
"william mook" <willia...@mokindustries.com> wrote in message
news:407c5321.03052...@posting.google.com...
> Energy contained in coal is important only to processes that use the
> energy from coal to produce the hydrogen. Fischer-Tropsch, H-Coal,
> Solvent Recovery Cycle, you name it - all are variations on a theme.
> Basically you're using energy in coal to generate hydrogen, and then
> using hydrogen and more coal this time as a carbon source to generate
> hydrocarbons.
>
> My process derives hydrogen from renewable sources and observes that
> once you have cost-effective hydrogen, its highest best use is as a
> means to convert carbon sources to hydrocarbon fuels. Why? Because
> our world runs on hydrocarbons.
>
> Hydrocarbon fuels have about 2.1 hydrogens per carbon atom.
> Therefore, for every 12 kg of carbon my process must make 2.1 kg of
> hydrogen and generate 14.1 kg of hydrocarbons.
>
> High carbon content coals have 80% of their mass carbon. Low carbon
> content coals have 60% of their mass carbon. So, this translates to
> 15 kg to 20 kg of coal needed for each 14.1 kg of hydrocarbon fuels
> with the addition of 2.1 kg of hydrogen.
>
> Each kg of hydrogen requires 140 MJ of energy to produce - with
> efficiencies being what they are this translates to 200 MJ of solar
> energy needed to process a kg of hydrogen. So, 420 MJ is needed to
> convert 15 to 20 kg of coal into 14.1 kg of liquid fuels. That's a
> solar requirement of 29.78 MJ/kg of synthetic crude.
>
> gallons of liquid. According to;
>
> http://www.etcentre.org/main/e/db/oil_intr.htm#den
>
> crude oil weighs 8 lbs per gallon, so a barrel of crude weighs 336 lbs
> or 152.7 kg. Thus, crude oil has 39.29 MJ per kg. This is nearly 10
> MJ per kg *more* than in the hydrogen. Where does this energy come
> from? The coal!
>
> One ton of coal will produce 640.9 kg to 854.5 kg of solar derived
> synthetic fuels depending on carbon content. This is equivalent to
> 4.1 to 5.6 barrels of oil per ton of coal.
>
> In these fuels 75% to 82% of the total energy release comes from
> sunlight, despite the fact you're using coal.
I have to disagree. I come up with less. basically 30MJ of coal is
upgraded to 40MJ of oil. Thats only 33% Ofcourse you migh be comparing it
to the alternatve of Hydrogen derived form coal itself.
>
> Now, traditional coal-to-oil processes take the energy contained in
> coal which ranges from 15 MJ to 27 MJ per kg, and makes hydrogen by
> burning measured quantities of water, coal and air together. At 18%
> efficiency, this means that only 2.5 MJ to 4.7 MJ per kg of coal, ends
> up in the synthetic oil. Since each kg of synthetic oil has 39.29 MJ
> per kg, this means that 8 kg and 15 kg of coal must be BURNT to
> process an additional 0.7 kg of coal into a kg of oil. Thus you need
> 9 kg and 16 kg of coal to make a kg of oil. So, between 1.5 ton and
> 2.5 ton of coal into a barrel of oil.
>
> TRADITIONAL PROCESS: 1.5 - 2.5 @$20 = $30 to $50 input
> MOK PROCESS: 0.2 @$20 = $4 input
Thanks, that's a beautifully written post. While I agree with your
reasoning and maths I disagree with the values you use.
The references I give claim conversion efficiencies of 45% to 75%. Even
FT should manage 55%.
http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/coal/cfft/cct/pub/techs_status.shtml
TSR010 Coal Liquefaction (DTI/Pub URN 99/1120)
"Disadvantages of the Technology
Liquefaction processes typically achieve an energy conversion
(% CV of the input fuel converted to finished products) of 65-70%
(direct liquefaction) and 55% (indirect liquefaction)."
Assuming 27MJ/KG energy content for coal and a conservative conversion
efficiency of 50% We end up with 14MJ of oil. This works out as about 0.4L
of oil.
As we have 160L in a barrel we would need 400KG of coal. I.E. 1 ton of
coal produces 2.5 barrels of oil at 50% efficiency.
Clearly our difference is over the assumed efficiency of the process.
I can only imagine you got your 18% figure from the Fischer-Tropsch library
and that this was a figure based on the German WW2 mini FT plants hidden in
forests to avoid allied bombardment.
As for the idea of adding renewably generated H2 to the coal I agree its a
massive gain. A trebbling of oil output. Even the Germans could have done
this in WW2 if they had plenty of hydro available using the Bergius process.
Roland Paterson-Jones
> Now, traditional coal-to-oil processes take the energy contained in
> coal which ranges from 15 MJ to 27 MJ per kg, and makes hydrogen by
> burning measured quantities of water, coal and air together. At 18%
> efficiency, this means that only 2.5 MJ to 4.7 MJ per kg of coal, ends
> up in the synthetic oil.
William, there is a non-sequitur here.
18% efficiency of hydrogen production does not imply 18% efficiency of the
total process. I can believe the former, but make me believe in the latter.
Roland
--
Roland Paterson-Jones
Manager, Forest Lodge, Stirrup Lane, Hout Bay
http://www.rolandpj.com/forest-lodge
mobile: +27 72 386 8044
e-mail: forest...@rolandpj.com
william mook
> "william mook" <willia...@mokindustries.com> wrote in message
> news:407c5321.03052...@posting.google.com...
> > Energy contained in coal is important only to processes that use the
> > energy from coal to produce the hydrogen. Fischer-Tropsch, H-Coal,
> > Solvent Recovery Cycle, you name it - all are variations on a theme.
> > Basically you're using energy in coal to generate hydrogen, and then
> > using hydrogen and more coal this time as a carbon source to generate
> > hydrocarbons.
> >
> > My process derives hydrogen from renewable sources and observes that
> > once you have cost-effective hydrogen, its highest best use is as a
> > means to convert carbon sources to hydrocarbon fuels. Why? Because
> > our world runs on hydrocarbons.
> >
> > Hydrocarbon fuels have about 2.1 hydrogens per carbon atom.
> > Therefore, for every 12 kg of carbon my process must make 2.1 kg of
> > hydrogen and generate 14.1 kg of hydrocarbons.
> >
> > High carbon content coals have 80% of their mass carbon. Low carbon
> > content coals have 60% of their mass carbon. So, this translates to
> > 15 kg to 20 kg of coal needed for each 14.1 kg of hydrocarbon fuels
> > with the addition of 2.1 kg of hydrogen.
> >
> > Each kg of hydrogen requires 140 MJ of energy to produce - with
> > efficiencies being what they are this translates to 200 MJ of solar
> > energy needed to process a kg of hydrogen. So, 420 MJ is needed to
> > convert 15 to 20 kg of coal into 14.1 kg of liquid fuels. That's a
> > solar requirement of 29.78 MJ/kg of synthetic crude.
> >
> > gallons of liquid. According to;
> >
> > http://www.etcentre.org/main/e/db/oil_intr.htm#den
> >
> > crude oil weighs 8 lbs per gallon, so a barrel of crude weighs 336 lbs
> > or 152.7 kg. Thus, crude oil has 39.29 MJ per kg. This is nearly 10
> > MJ per kg *more* than in the hydrogen. Where does this energy come
> > from? The coal!
> >
> > One ton of coal will produce 640.9 kg to 854.5 kg of solar derived
> > synthetic fuels depending on carbon content. This is equivalent to
> > 4.1 to 5.6 barrels of oil per ton of coal.
> >
> > In these fuels 75% to 82% of the total energy release comes from
> > sunlight, despite the fact you're using coal.
>
> I have to disagree. I come up with less. basically 30MJ of coal is
> upgraded to 40MJ of oil. Thats only 33% Ofcourse you migh be comparing it
> to the alternatve of Hydrogen derived form coal itself.
Yes.
Hmm... so, $20 worth of coal produces 2.5 barrels with a value of
$75. Then, why don't we use this to convert coal to oil today? The
coal would cost in this scenario $8 per barrel. Add $6 per barrel for
capital equipment related to the process (and what about recurring
catalytic costs?) and you're at $14 per barrel - which is less than it
costs to produce oil in the arctic.
Clearly, these figures are higher than has been achieved (or are not
generally known) - otherwise there would be a rush to convert coal to
oil right now. This isn't the case, since most people feel that $40
per barrel is the best that traditional coal to oil can achieve.
> Clearly our difference is over the assumed efficiency of the process.
Agreed. Plainly the efficiency I quote is reflected in the real world
cost figures for the overall process, rather than the stage
efficiencies you quoted.
> I can only imagine you got your 18% figure from the Fischer-Tropsch library
> and that this was a figure based on the German WW2 mini FT plants hidden in
> forests to avoid allied bombardment.
Obviously, where the plant is located and whether or not the Allies
bombed it are immaterial, so I don't know why you mentioned it. The
FT process variant used by SASOL achieves this level of efficiency
-which is a modern industrial process- and obtains no better than $40
per barrel. South Africa produces 1/3 of its gasoline from local coal
deposits.
> As for the idea of adding renewably generated H2 to the coal I agree its a
> massive gain. A trebbling of oil output.
Absolutely! I see a 15 fold increase, but clearly, there's a massive
gain.
> Even the Germans could have done
> this in WW2 if they had plenty of hydro available using the Bergius process.
Bergius did most of his hydrogenation work in 1913 iirc. He used very
high pressure hydrogen and high temperatures. Didn't use catalysts
though, which is a plus, as they did in WWII.
Of course the Germans in WWII were busily using their hydro to
separate isotopes of uranium - which is another story!
william mook
2005, Texas.
Dez Akin
> As far as 'cleanenergy' is concerned, I visited their web site, and
> didn't find much of substance. While I applaud their efforts, and
> support their vision - I find two troubling things about what they're
> proposing;
>
> (i) They're seeking government assistance - this implies all the
> energy in their synfuel comes from carbon sources- which makes them
> uneconomic requiring government assistance to make work;
The government assistance is likely to be quite small as is the scale
of the operation in relation to the scale of the energy industry. The
reason for government assistance in this sector is more of an economic
national security strategy in the event of a crisis that requires the
US to have technological and industrial basing to mount an independant
fuel production base in any unforseen crisis. It certainly isn't
likely to be utilized in the near future as an economic alternative to
oil; look a couple decades out.
> (ii) They haven't explicitly shown their process, but have referred to
> existing proven processes - which again means uneconomic conversion.
>
> It takes 2 to 3 tons of coal to make a barrel of oil using
> ultraclean's process. That's because they're using the coal energy to
> energize the oil.
>
> My process makes five barrels of oil from a single ton of coal.
> That's because 9/10th of the energy in the resulting synthetic fuel
> comes from sunlight!
Learn to walk before you can run. If you can make energy that cheaply,
then you're allready a multibillionaire in the conventional utility
industry. You aren't. You're a fraud.
Its like the Fermi Paradox of energy economics, we can call it the
Mook Paradox; If it was easy enough for someone to make energy that
cheaply and effeciently with so little R&D that a loudmouth self
publicist could come up with it, then several large universities,
national labs, energy companies with far brighter people and larger
research budgets would have come up with it decades earlier.
For a start you wouldn't give a spit about hydrogenating coal with
your incredibly cheap energy; You'd just sell the incredibly cheap
energy to people that have the process down pat.
This is like the fractal robots guy, Archimedes Plutonium, the skycar
guy, etcetera: Education beyond intellect and self-image inflated
beyond worth.
The Enlightenment
The capital costs of coal to oil, coal storage, tailings and conveyor
handling are quite high compared to oil which is simply warmed and pumped
and then there is the cost of desulpherisation. (not so much a disadavatage
as oil will soon need to be desupherised to lower levels as well) Then there
is a massive water requirement and that water needs to be deminieralised.
Every 4 monts or so the catalusts need to be replaced.
SASAL 1 opperated at 33% efficiency I've read and the latter plants near 50%
>
> > Clearly our difference is over the assumed efficiency of the process.
>
> Agreed. Plainly the efficiency I quote is reflected in the real world
> cost figures for the overall process, rather than the stage
> efficiencies you quoted.
No I haven't quoted stage efficiencies. Not according to the link I gave.
>
> > I can only imagine you got your 18% figure from the Fischer-Tropsch
library
> > and that this was a figure based on the German WW2 mini FT plants
hidden in
> > forests to avoid allied bombardment.
>
> Obviously, where the plant is located and whether or not the Allies
> bombed it are immaterial, so I don't know why you mentioned it. The
> FT process variant used by SASOL achieves this level of efficiency
> -which is a modern industrial process- and obtains no better than $40
> per barrel. South Africa produces 1/3 of its gasoline from local coal
> deposits.
I've heard $32/barrel but $40 is reasonable. Can't remember where though.
There is a chap on this NG who says his friend form SASOL siad they are down
to $22. I do know that FT is considered competitve if NG is the feed stock.
(This confirms my opinion that it is coal handling a dn desulpherization
that is expensive)
Germay ran I believe 16 Bergius Hydrogenation plants (For high grade
aviation gasoline, they opperated at 7000psi by pressurising hydrogen into a
coal oil slurry, they used mainly brown coal) and 16 Fischer Tropsch Plants
(for diesel, waxes, low grade gasoline, chimicals. These plants used mainly
black coal.)
These plants were eventualy effectively put of action by alled bombing as
the war progressed and nearly a million men were dedicated to their
continious repair.
The reason I mention the mini FT plants is that the Germans built dozens of
small FT plants small enough to hide in a forrest. I expect they were
relatively inefficent becuase of their simplicity.
>
> > As for the idea of adding renewably generated H2 to the coal I agree its
a
> > massive gain. A trebbling of oil output.
>
> Absolutely! I see a 15 fold increase, but clearly, there's a massive
> gain.
>
> > Even the Germans could have done
> > this in WW2 if they had plenty of hydro available using the Bergius
process.
>
> Bergius did most of his hydrogenation work in 1913 iirc. He used very
> high pressure hydrogen and high temperatures. Didn't use catalysts
> though, which is a plus, as they did in WWII.
Early work was without hydrogen, latter to increase yields hydrogen was
added. Apparently the piping and collanders were so heavy to handlet the
high pressures that they were resisten to destruction by bombs. The
hydrogen production plant was a easier target. There also lies the expense
of th coal to oil by pressurisation. Huge steel requirement. (Catalysts
have reduced the pressures)
>
> Of course the Germans in WWII were busily using their hydro to
> separate isotopes of uranium - which is another story!
To obtain heavy water nactual. Their early graphite was contaminated so
they thought that it couldn't be used as a moderator so they had to spend
years extracting heavy water but for that error the war may have turned out
different as their program migh have accelerated.
william mook
Catalyst requirements are a problem with shift reaction based
production of hydrogen from coal, air, water. This is not so much a
problem with renewable hydrogen production.
> SASAL 1 opperated at 33% efficiency I've read and the latter plants near 50%
Well, then we should see less costly oil derived from coal. Of
course, whatever the efficiencies, they cannot match or beat my
process which uses coal as a carbon source only, not an energy source
to produce hydrogen.
> > > Clearly our difference is over the assumed efficiency of the process.
> >
> > Agreed. Plainly the efficiency I quote is reflected in the real world
> > cost figures for the overall process, rather than the stage
> > efficiencies you quoted.
>
>
> No I haven't quoted stage efficiencies. Not according to the link I gave.
Clearly you quoted very high efficiencies. Plainly you've backed down
from your 50% since you said here SASAL 1 operated at 33% efficiency.
Obviously you haven't explained what you're comparing yet. Clearly
the cost per barrel figure in production - both in terms of coal to
oil and in terms of dollars per barrel - reflect an inefficiency
somewhere, and these are the figures of merit.
So, plainly, rather than argue over hypothetical efficiencies, it
behooves us to have a conversation of merit - what are the barrels per
ton and dollars per barrel of each process? Obviously, a 'free'
source of hydrogen (a) reduces capital cost, (b) improves system
efficiency, (c) reduces conversion costs, (d) reduces coal inputs per
barrel.
> > > I can only imagine you got your 18% figure from the Fischer-Tropsch
> library
> > > and that this was a figure based on the German WW2 mini FT plants
> hidden in
> > > forests to avoid allied bombardment.
> >
> > Obviously, where the plant is located and whether or not the Allies
> > bombed it are immaterial, so I don't know why you mentioned it. The
> > FT process variant used by SASOL achieves this level of efficiency
> > -which is a modern industrial process- and obtains no better than $40
> > per barrel. South Africa produces 1/3 of its gasoline from local coal
> > deposits.
>
>
> I've heard $32/barrel but $40 is reasonable.
Yes.
> Can't remember where though.
Try the energy analysts at any major brokerage firm.
> There is a chap on this NG who says his friend form SASOL siad they are down
> to $22.
Clearly it would be nice if this rumor were true. The cost of my
process is $8 per barrel.
> I do know that FT is considered competitve if NG is the feed stock.
Yes, we're using natural gas at one site to produce fuels, before
shipping coal to our 'free hydrogen' system.
> (This confirms my opinion that it is coal handling a dn desulpherization
> that is expensive)
If you don't burn the coal you don't have this problem. If you use
the coal as a carbon source in a hydrogenation reaction only, you
vapor condense everything from the hydrogenation reactor and vacuum
distill the products - all of them. This includes hydrogen sulfide.
This is distilled along with everything else - and either sold as an
industrial product, or reduced electrolytically to elemental sulfer
and hydrogen. The hydrogen is then recycled and the sulfer is sold.
The electrolytic process of hydrogen production is far cleaner as
well.
> Germay ran I believe 16 Bergius Hydrogenation plants (For high grade
> aviation gasoline, they opperated at 7000psi by pressurising hydrogen into a
> coal oil slurry, they used mainly brown coal) and 16 Fischer Tropsch Plants
> (for diesel, waxes, low grade gasoline, chimicals. These plants used mainly
> black coal.)
>
> These plants were eventualy effectively put of action by alled bombing as
> the war progressed and nearly a million men were dedicated to their
> continious repair.
Yet, modern refining plants which use many of the same elements don't
require nearly this much manpower.
> The reason I mention the mini FT plants is that the Germans built dozens of
> small FT plants small enough to hide in a forrest. I expect they were
> relatively inefficent becuase of their simplicity.
Yep.
> >
> > > As for the idea of adding renewably generated H2 to the coal I agree its
> a
> > > massive gain. A trebbling of oil output.
> >
> > Absolutely! I see a 15 fold increase, but clearly, there's a massive
> > gain.
> >
> > > Even the Germans could have done
> > > this in WW2 if they had plenty of hydro available using the Bergius
> process.
> >
> > Bergius did most of his hydrogenation work in 1913 iirc. He used very
> > high pressure hydrogen and high temperatures. Didn't use catalysts
> > though, which is a plus, as they did in WWII.
>
> Early work was without hydrogen, latter to increase yields hydrogen was
> added. Apparently the piping and collanders were so heavy to handlet the
> high pressures that they were resisten to destruction by bombs. The
> hydrogen production plant was a easier target. There also lies the expense
> of th coal to oil by pressurisation. Huge steel requirement. (Catalysts
> have reduced the pressures)
Right, there's an optimal solution based on recurring costs versus
capital costs - we get oil at $8 per barrel.
> > Of course the Germans in WWII were busily using their hydro to
> > separate isotopes of uranium - which is another story!
>
> To obtain heavy water nactual. Their early graphite was contaminated so
> they thought that it couldn't be used as a moderator so they had to spend
> years extracting heavy water but for that error the war may have turned out
> different as their program migh have accelerated.
Well, we can attribute their lack of success in this endeavour to;
(1) not rewarding meritorious work in nuclear physics (they called
it
'jewish' science at one point.)
(2) the covert efforts of Werner Heisenberg.
(3) the hand of God upon America.
You may choose any or all.
Cheers.
william mook
> "william mook" <willia...@mokindustries.com> wrote in message
>
> > Now, traditional coal-to-oil processes take the energy contained in
> > coal which ranges from 15 MJ to 27 MJ per kg, and makes hydrogen by
> > burning measured quantities of water, coal and air together. At 18%
> > efficiency, this means that only 2.5 MJ to 4.7 MJ per kg of coal, ends
> > up in the synthetic oil.
>
> William, there is a non-sequitur here.
>
> 18% efficiency of hydrogen production does not imply 18% efficiency of the
> total process. I can believe the former, but make me believe in the latter.
>
> Roland
I guess I mispoke - I didn't mean to imply an 18% stage efficiency -
but an 18% overall efficiency. In my effort to accentuate the
importance of hydrogen production, I made this mistake sorry.
william mook
> willia...@mokindustries.com (william mook) wrote in message news:<407c5321.03052...@posting.google.com>...
> > As far as 'cleanenergy' is concerned, I visited their web site, and
> > didn't find much of substance. While I applaud their efforts, and
> > support their vision - I find two troubling things about what they're
> > proposing;
> >
> > (i) They're seeking government assistance - this implies all the
> > energy in their synfuel comes from carbon sources- which makes them
> > uneconomic requiring government assistance to make work;
>
> The government assistance is likely to be quite small as is the scale
> of the operation in relation to the scale of the energy industry.
Have you seen the financials of 'Ultra Clean Fuels'? They're living
on donations and other assorted handouts of folks who recognizing the
tremendous risk, are willing to give these guys a shot in the unlikely
event oil shoots past $40 per barrel. The government *already* allows
$3 per barrel credits - and ultra clean says through their political
action committee that isn't enough.
The business types I'm aware of who have invested in this enterprise,
have admitted its a long shot, because oil would have to be $40 per
barrel or more - over an extended period - for this system to be
profitable.
This all stems from the fact that ultra-clean obtains all the energy
needed to make liquid fuels from coal - rather than merely using the
coal as a carbon source and adding the energy from the sun in the form
of low-cost hydrogen.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. Ultra clean is very clear
about what it needs to be profitable. If continued troubles in the
middle east and elsewhere cause prices of oil to rise and stay high
over a long period, ultra clean stands a chance to make money -
they're very clear on their role as a subsidized alternative to
low-cost oil.
This is NOT what we're about at Mok Industries. We make oil for less
than market prices. Therefore, we don't need subsidies, we don't need
venture capital. We merely leverage contracts for coal delivery and
oil delivery in the right amounts, and with the appropriate
disclosures, to raise whatever money we need.
> The
> reason for government assistance in this sector is more of an economic
> national security strategy in the event of a crisis that requires the
> US to have technological and industrial basing to mount an independant
> fuel production base in any unforseen crisis.
I agree 100%. Clearly if Ultra Clean could make liquid fuels of a
quality and at a price that was competitive with existing fuel source,
such assistance would not be needed. They'd have all the money they'd
need from the market. Remember, last year this world spent $550
billion on oil. It doesn't take much to make money if you have a low
cost high quality source of oil. Ultra clean fails on both these
counts, so they need assistance. This assistance makes absolute sense
for the reasons you indicate. No problem there.
> It certainly isn't
> likely to be utilized in the near future as an economic alternative to
> oil; look a couple decades out.
Plainly you are agreeing with my comments here. Obviously you believe
a few decades out costs will drop slightly and prices will rise
slightly, and ultra clean's process will be economic. Clearly this
assumes the same thing I assumed which is ultraclean is not economic
at present. Ultra clean requires government subsidy to hold on. At
present Ultra Clean is an alternative to foreign imports. and so
forth. Obviously we have no disagreement. Clearly you have no basis
for the tone you are taking.
> > (ii) They haven't explicitly shown their process, but have referred to
> > existing proven processes - which again means uneconomic conversion.
> >
> > It takes 2 to 3 tons of coal to make a barrel of oil using
> > ultraclean's process. That's because they're using the coal energy to
> > energize the oil.
> >
> > My process makes five barrels of oil from a single ton of coal.
> > That's because 9/10th of the energy in the resulting synthetic fuel
> > comes from sunlight!
>
> Learn to walk before you can run.
What the hell does that mean?
> If you can make energy that cheaply,
> then you're allready a multibillionaire in the conventional utility
> industry.
Clearly you aren't familiar with the conventional utility business,
and the difficulty of integrating an unpredictable, variable, diffuse,
power source into it. Plainly, the unregulated use of DC power to
cheaply electrolyze water as that power is available technically and
commercially involves far less risk. Obviously once one has a dirt
cheap source of hydrogen the highest best use of it is in the creation
of hydrocarbons using the sort of process I've got.
As far as my finances are concerned, they're nobody's business except
my creditor's and other assorted stakeholders. Although I will say
that I am currently the proud owner of 12 million tons of coal, and
have sold contracts for the delivery of 60 million barrels of oil.
The financing difference in value of these two contracts ($200 million
vs. $1,800 million) is what is powering my business operation. Ultra
clean cannot do this because they have not demonstrated $8 per barrel
production costs as we have. While this first deal doesn't make me a
*multi-* billionaire - on paper at least, I'm approaching billionaire
status. Of course, this is only my first deal!
> You aren't. You're a fraud.
Nonsense. Clearly you lack any understanding of the relative
difficulties of what you advise me to do. Plainly that suggests you
are the very thing you accuse me of being - a fraud.
You see, how you use electrons depends not only on the cost of those
electrons relative to other things (like molecules of hydrogen, or
carbon) but also on their structure, availability, demand, and so
forth. Obviously a decision matrix put together this way clearly
shows the highest best use of any source of electrons and plainly
shows the path toward greatest return on investment with the least
risk to capital. This path starts with synthetic fuel and then back
propagates into electrical power grid. At least with my technology.
> Its like the Fermi Paradox of energy economics, we can call it the
> Mook Paradox;
Bullshit.
> If it was easy enough for someone to make energy that
> cheaply and effeciently with so little R&D that a loudmouth self
> publicist could come up with it, then several large universities,
> national labs, energy companies with far brighter people and larger
> research budgets would have come up with it decades earlier.
Now now, there is absolutely no basis for your mean spirited and
clearly stupid name calling.
If you look at the history of the VMJ cell and the research that
supports it you'll see that it has a decades long history. You will
also see that due in part to my efforts, there was the very first
conference ever on concentrating photovoltaics held in Louisiana in
2002. Plainly my success in this regard reflects my intelligence and
commitment, not the other attributes you wrongly ascribe to me.
I really don't understand your bigoted and vile response. Clearly
ultra clean itself admits it cannot produce oil economically but hopes
to do so in the future, and positions itself to benefit from
government subsidy while it awaits increasing oil costs. Plainly
ultra clean is at risk if someone like me develops a process that can
make oil from coal at $8 per barrel - which is economic and is highly
unlikely to fail to be economic going forward. This changes the risk
structure of the technology and the sources of revenue that are
available to me versus Ultra Clean.
> For a start you wouldn't give a spit about hydrogenating coal with
> your incredibly cheap energy; You'd just sell the incredibly cheap
> energy to people that have the process down pat.
Plainly you have absolutely no understanding of the requirements of
integrating a diffuse, variable, and unpredictable power source into
it. Even so, we are working very closely with a number of utilities
to see how this may be done. It is a subject of ongoing research, and
will result in great opportunities going forward. Basically, with our
very low cost electrons we have three markets available to us;
(1) synthetic fuel production,
(2) solar peaking plant production,
(3) panel sales,
Each is a distinctly different market with its own technical and
business requirements. This translates to their own set of business
and technical risks and rewards. Which ultimately translates to a
business model and business development plan that provides the
greatest return at least risk.
While low cost electrons are certainly easily sold to customers
willing to pay dearly for those electrons - the ratio of costs isn't
the only factor to consider. When the electrons are needed versus
when they are available. How the electron flow is structured. How
predictable are the flows. and so forth.
Our power panels produce VDC and must be inverted to produce VAC. The
power panels must be carry an electrical load that matches lighting
conditions to obtain peak efficiency. This is called peak power
tracking capacity. Power tracking is essentially unpredictable as
cloud movements. For an electrical grid, this adds a great deal of
complexity. They have enough trouble adjusting power plant output to
match variable consumer demand. Adding variable generator capacity
just multiplies this trouble. This means even if power were free,
they would have a limited capacity to absorb it under the conditions
its typically produced. And this is just the short list that have
come from our work we have supported at the the major utilities in the
US. There these and other practical difficulties associated with our
panel use.
If we were as costly as wind generated power there'd be no problem.
The amount of power the utilities would buy wouldn't make a
difference. But, we're after bigger game. We're generating at a
price point that means as much as 10 to 15% of a power grids total
energy budget would be solar powered. Thats a great opportunity, but
raises a large number of significant problems for the utilities who
contemplate this level of solar input. We are at present addressing
these problems and very soon (within 36 months) expect to announce a
major program.
> This is like the fractal robots guy, Archimedes Plutonium, the skycar
> guy, etcetera:
Check out http://www.mokindustries.com
You'll see actual solar panels for sale at actual prices. None of
those others you mention are offering that. Plainly this suggests
that I don't deserve to be equated with them.
> Education beyond intellect and self-image inflated
> beyond worth.
Did you read this on a t-shirt? This has totally no meaning in the
context of your earlier attacks. Look, if you're an investor in Ultra
Clean, and you are scared about what my technology might do, that's
perfectly reasonable. Ultra clean is betting no one can make oil at
less cost than they can from oil. That I can make oil more cheaply
threatens them - and clearly threatens you. This is perfectly
reasonable. But, there's no reason to be nasty and irrational.
Cheers.
--William Mook
Dez Akin
> > then you're allready a multibillionaire in the conventional utility
> > industry.
>
> Clearly you aren't familiar with the conventional utility business,
> and the difficulty of integrating an unpredictable, variable, diffuse,
> power source into it. Plainly, the unregulated use of DC power to
> cheaply electrolyze water as that power is available technically and
> commercially involves far less risk. Obviously once one has a dirt
> cheap source of hydrogen the highest best use of it is in the creation
> of hydrocarbons using the sort of process I've got.
Fair enough, but I'm skeptical that reselling electricity directly to
the utility isn't a better deal than going through all the energy
losses of synthetic fuel production.
> As far as my finances are concerned, they're nobody's business except
> my creditor's and other assorted stakeholders. Although I will say
> that I am currently the proud owner of 12 million tons of coal, and
> have sold contracts for the delivery of 60 million barrels of oil.
> The financing difference in value of these two contracts ($200 million
> vs. $1,800 million) is what is powering my business operation. Ultra
> clean cannot do this because they have not demonstrated $8 per barrel
> production costs as we have. While this first deal doesn't make me a
> *multi-* billionaire - on paper at least, I'm approaching billionaire
> status. Of course, this is only my first deal!
Congratulations. When are you due to deliver your first contract?
> > You aren't. You're a fraud.
>
> Nonsense. Clearly you lack any understanding of the relative
> difficulties of what you advise me to do. Plainly that suggests you
> are the very thing you accuse me of being - a fraud.
>
> You see, how you use electrons depends not only on the cost of those
> electrons relative to other things (like molecules of hydrogen, or
> carbon) but also on their structure, availability, demand, and so
> forth. Obviously a decision matrix put together this way clearly
> shows the highest best use of any source of electrons and plainly
> shows the path toward greatest return on investment with the least
> risk to capital. This path starts with synthetic fuel and then back
> propagates into electrical power grid. At least with my technology.
Yes, but this is where I remain skeptical. Synthetic fuel production
plants require rather large capital investments, as far as my
understanding of synthetic fuel production goes, whereas reselling
electricity would seem to not require nearly so much.
> > Its like the Fermi Paradox of energy economics, we can call it the
> > Mook Paradox;
>
> Bullshit.
>
> > If it was easy enough for someone to make energy that
> > cheaply and effeciently with so little R&D that a loudmouth self
> > publicist could come up with it, then several large universities,
> > national labs, energy companies with far brighter people and larger
> > research budgets would have come up with it decades earlier.
>
> Now now, there is absolutely no basis for your mean spirited and
> clearly stupid name calling.
Perhaps I'm a bit mean spirited, but your claims are more than
extraordinary, and your disclosure of methods and economics, while
loquatious, are rather less than illuminating on some magic
technologies and economics. The world has seen this many times before,
and it has far more often than not been zealous overconfidence in the
technologies and occasionally outright lies.
> If you look at the history of the VMJ cell and the research that
> supports it you'll see that it has a decades long history. You will
> also see that due in part to my efforts, there was the very first
> conference ever on concentrating photovoltaics held in Louisiana in
> 2002. Plainly my success in this regard reflects my intelligence and
> commitment, not the other attributes you wrongly ascribe to me.
I'm sure you're intelligent and committed. Whether you're right is
what I'm more concerned about. I found no reference to Mook or
mokindustries in the conference proceedings (at
http://www.nrel.gov/icsec/) A cite or reference would be helpful.
What I did find in relation to the VMJ cell was a paper from doe:
http://www.oit.doe.gov/inventions/factsheets/photovolt.pdf
detailing economics:
"Installation costs for one of the leading manufactured silicon-based
dish concentrator cells are between 1.99/Watt and $4.02/Watt. In
comparison, the VMJ silicon cell is projected to have an installation
cost between $1.00/W and $2.00/W"
Hardly magical price advantages, and its far more restrictive about
where it can be used (sunny areas with very little overcast.)
> I really don't understand your bigoted and vile response. Clearly
> ultra clean itself admits it cannot produce oil economically but hopes
> to do so in the future, and positions itself to benefit from
> government subsidy while it awaits increasing oil costs. Plainly
> ultra clean is at risk if someone like me develops a process that can
> make oil from coal at $8 per barrel - which is economic and is highly
> unlikely to fail to be economic going forward. This changes the risk
> structure of the technology and the sources of revenue that are
> available to me versus Ultra Clean.
All this is valid and sound if you take some major assumptions which
have not been proven at least to my satisfaction:
1) That you can really produce electricity as cheaply as you imply.
2) That your proven synthetic fuel production process produces fuel
from coal for $8 per barrel.
Fuel synthesis plants aren't small capital, and super cheap
electricity isn't proven to exist. If you are controlling vast amounts
of capitial (which you may be but it certainly has escaped the radar
of the financial institutions I monitor, or your synthetic fuel
production plant is somehow magically requires very little capital)
and your vmj cell's technology produces electricity three orders of
magnitude more cheaply than the doe factsheet implies, then you are on
solid footing.
These assumptions aren't something I'm going to swallow lightly.
> > For a start you wouldn't give a spit about hydrogenating coal with
> > your incredibly cheap energy; You'd just sell the incredibly cheap
> > energy to people that have the process down pat.
>
> Plainly you have absolutely no understanding of the requirements of
> integrating a diffuse, variable, and unpredictable power source into
> it. Even so, we are working very closely with a number of utilities
> to see how this may be done. It is a subject of ongoing research, and
> will result in great opportunities going forward. Basically, with our
> very low cost electrons we have three markets available to us;
>
> (1) synthetic fuel production,
> (2) solar peaking plant production,
> (3) panel sales,
You may as well set up an aluminum processing facility as well.
Aluminum profits can be very closely corrolated with the price of
electricity. Synthetic fuel production by cracking hydrogen from water
just sounds rather unrealistic for a first go.
The money just doesn't smell right, and the capital flows you are
implying are far too large for there not to be ripples that everyone
could see.
> > This is like the fractal robots guy, Archimedes Plutonium, the skycar
> > guy, etcetera:
>
> Check out http://www.mokindustries.com
>
> You'll see actual solar panels for sale at actual prices. None of
> those others you mention are offering that. Plainly this suggests
> that I don't deserve to be equated with them.
What I don't see are panels and prices.
Tequila
of the poorer countries worldwide?
What are the recuring costs with FT?
It seems to me that any poor country with coal could use its low cost
labor to produce
something that is exportable.
T.
william mook
Texaco, the Rich family, and others are behind this venture. It is a
variant of the SASOL process. They have received $100 million from
the DOE to develop this process. It is not expected to be profitable,
unless the price of oil rises above $40 per barrel and stays there.
The US has DOE has sponsored coal conversion programs in the past.
During the Carter Administration billions were spent developing a wide
range of improvements to earlier processes. None have been economic.
There are several reasons for this. The first, is the expense and
short life span of the conversion equipment. The second, is the large
quantity of coal used per barrel of production.
There are basically two ways to get oil from coal, carbonisation and
hydrogenation.
Carbonisation merely heats coal to drive off volatile compounds it may
have, leaving enriched carbon behind. Coal has a small quantity of
volatile compounds in it. These can be driven off by heating leaving
almost pure carbon behind. If the volatile compounds are distilled
rather than vented, these can produce liquid fuels. Coal companies
that sell carbon to steel companies have for a long time created 'coal
oil' in this way. Massey Coal is one of these, which has operated
coal liquefaction processes in the US for a long time. DOE has funded
programs that take the heat of the carbonisation process and generate
electricity, distill the liquid fuels, and provide coke for steel
making.
Hydrogenation takes hydrogen and adds it to coal to synthesize
hydrocarbons. For this process to work, you need a source of
hydrogen. One way this is achieved is to create lots of carbon
monoxide by partially burning coal and then using the carbon monoxide
along with a catalyst to scavenge oxygen from water vapor created by
the partial burning of the coal. Water consists of hydrogen and
oxygen, so when the carbon monoxide steals the oxygen atom from the
water molecule, it leaves hydrogen behind. The carbon monoxide
becomes carbon dioxide by this process. This process is relatively
ineffiecient, requires substantial capital investments in machinery
that has short lifespans, and still uses lots of coal. Hydrogenation
is far better than carbonisation in creating liquid fuels. But, it
requires coal to form the carbon monoxide, coal to power the process
and coal as a carbon source to combine with the hydrogen. In the end,
if oil is to pay the freight of operating the process, oil must be
sold for more than $40 per barrel. Of course, by creating a mix of
fuels including natural gas, and using cogeneration of electricity,
other sources of income can add to the mix, reducing the amount one
needs to charge for oil.
In summary the US oil companies have explored coal liquefaction since
the end of world war 2 and have built a large number of conversion
plants using a wide range of conversion technologies. None of these
technologies has proven to be more profitable than pumping oil out of
the ground. So, none of these technologies have been invested in
heavily.
Mike Ackerman
>
>
> Carbonisation merely heats coal to drive off volatile compounds it may
> have, leaving enriched carbon behind. Coal has a small quantity of
> volatile compounds in it. These can be driven off by heating leaving
> almost pure carbon behind. If the volatile compounds are distilled
> rather than vented, these can produce liquid fuels. Coal companies
> that sell carbon to steel companies have for a long time created 'coal
> oil' in this way. Massey Coal is one of these, which has operated
> coal liquefaction processes in the US for a long time. DOE has funded
> programs that take the heat of the carbonisation process and generate
> electricity, distill the liquid fuels, and provide coke for steel
> making.
That last sentence has me puzzled. Doesn't carbonization consume energy?
Mike Ackerman
william mook
The newest U.S. coke facility is Sun Coke Co.'s Indiana Harbor plant
at East Chicago, Ill. The $195-million, 1.3-million-tpy plant began
producing coke in mid-1998, primarily for Ispat Inland Steel's No. 7
blast furnace, which is the largest of its kind in North America. Any
excess tonnage not required by the No. 7 operation will be sold either
to other Inland facilities or to third parties. The plant comprises
four batteries of 67 PLC-controlled, Jewell-Thompson type ovens and
utilizes a heat recovery process that allows Sun Coke to recover
clean, inert hot gas, which is used to provide steam for a 94-megawatt
turbine generator plant owned and operated by a subsidiary of Northern
Indiana Public Service.
Sun Coke tested a number of coal blends for use in the Indiana Harbor
plant, said Dale N. Walker, Sun's senior vice president of operations.
(Sun Coke is a subsidiary of Sunoco Inc.) Although the actual makeup
of the blends is proprietary information, Walker said that the
best-performing blends included significant quantities of noncoking
coal to reduce overall coal procurement costs.
Even with the noncoking coal component, all of the blends produced
coke that exceeded stability and strength specifications, making the
final blend selection a decision solely based on cost, according to
Walker. The high-quality coke produced at Indiana Harbor for Inland,
he said, has enabled the steelmaker to improve blast-furnace
performance; Inland set a new one-week production record of 11,800
average tons per day (tpd) in June, compared with a 1997 average of
9,500 tpd.
Antaeus Energy Corp., the U.S. operating subsidiary of Australia-based
Antaeus Energy Ltd. (formerly Greenfields Energy), is pursuing
development of a new coke production project, which also will
incorporate cogeneration of electric power from coke process waste
gases. Stuart Sleeman, vice president-business services for Antaeus
Energy, said that his company plans to build a $150-million,
500,000-tpy coke plant using the Antaeus Continuous Coke Process;
later phases of the project could boost production to 1.775 million
tpy.
The process, originally developed by Coal Technology Corp. with a
$10-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, uses multi-stage
pyrolysis to remove volatiles from the coking coal. The first stage
involves heating the coal, or coal fines, in a pyrolysis unit to more
than 1,000 degrees F to produce an intermediate char. The second stage
completes the devolitization process by pressing the char into
briquettes and heating them in a kiln to more than 2,000 degrees F to
produce the finished product. Antaeus purchased CTC's assets and
technology in February 1998.
The process is cheaper and more efficient than conventional
cokemaking, Sleeman said, because it focuses on two distinct "active"
zones in the coal devolitizationprocess rather than relying on the
traditional method of progressively heating coal in a coke oven for 18
to 24 hours. The first stage of low-temperature devolitization removes
50% to 60% of the volatile content, and the balance is removed in the
second, higher temperature heating stage. Total volatile content of
the finished product is less than 1%, Sleeman said.
According to the company's 1998 annual report, the estimated annual
production cost for coke produced by the process is $70.33 per ton,
compared with an estimated market price of $113 per ton for
blast-furnace coke and $167 per ton for foundry coke.
CHINESE INCREASE PRODUCTION North American coke producers must compete
with a growing influx of low-priced coke from China, where production
has grown significantly-from 43 million tons in 1980 to more than 137
million tons in 1997. China is the largest exporter of coke and
shipped about 11 million tons in 1998, roughly 60% of the export
market, followed by Japan (3 million tons) and Poland (2 million
tons). Japan, India, and the United States are the leading importers
of Chinese coke, each accounting for between 18% to 20% of the annual
total.
According to Alan Draper, Chinese coke quality has improved
considerably over the past 10 years. "Ten years ago, a typical cargo
of Chinese coke would have had 5% to 10% moisture content, ash content
of 13.5% to 15%, and poor sizing and a large [amount] of fines by the
time the cargo was discharged. Today, China produces mainly two
specifications of coke-10% to 15% ash and 12% to 12.5% ash.
"The 10% ash product makes up about 60% of exports and mainly goes to
the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Africa," Draper said.
"[Their] quality control has been achieved by better coal selection,
blending and washing systems, and improved control at the warehouses
where final screening and sizing takes place. With its low coke
production costs, including gradual implementation of pollution
control, and with supportive government policies, China will enhance
its present market share, and will therefore be able to meet any
shortages on the world market well into the 21st century."
Mike Ackerman
> Mike Ackerman <macker...@mailpuppy.com> wrote in message news:<3EE9670A...@mailpuppy.com>...
> > william mook wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Carbonisation merely heats coal to drive off volatile compounds it may
> > > have, leaving enriched carbon behind. Coal has a small quantity of
> > > volatile compounds in it. These can be driven off by heating leaving
> > > almost pure carbon behind. If the volatile compounds are distilled
> > > rather than vented, these can produce liquid fuels. Coal companies
> > > that sell carbon to steel companies have for a long time created 'coal
> > > oil' in this way. Massey Coal is one of these, which has operated
> > > coal liquefaction processes in the US for a long time. DOE has funded
> > > programs that take the heat of the carbonisation process and generate
> > > electricity, distill the liquid fuels, and provide coke for steel
> > > making.
> >
> > That last sentence has me puzzled. Doesn't carbonization consume energy?
> >
> > Mike Ackerman
>
> The newest U.S. coke facility is Sun Coke Co.'s Indiana Harbor plant
> at East Chicago, Ill. The $195-million, 1.3-million-tpy plant began
> producing coke in mid-1998, primarily for Ispat Inland Steel's No. 7
> blast furnace, which is the largest of its kind in North America.
[ SNIP ]
This unattributed quote from http://www.coalage.com/ar/coal_coke_outlook_low/ didn't answer my question.
Perhaps it's difficult to recycle the heat of fresh coke into the feed coal, so these plants perform
"bottoming" cogeneration instead. But it is still just cogeneration.
Mike Ackerman
william mook
I'm sorry, I thought I gave the attribution (a pointer to the URL you
listed.)
Heck, Mike, if you're reading Coal Age magazine closely enough to
recognize an unattributed snipped about pyrolysis, what are you doing
playing at not knowing how carbonization works? Clearly you have
another agenda altogether asking questions you plainly know the answer
to.
Cheers.
Mike Ackerman
>
> I'm sorry, I thought I gave the attribution (a pointer to the URL you
> listed.)
>
> Heck, Mike, if you're reading Coal Age magazine closely enough to
> recognize an unattributed snipped about pyrolysis, what are you doing
> playing at not knowing how carbonization works? Clearly you have
> another agenda altogether asking questions you plainly know the answer
> to.
>
Just a few seconds on Google got me the reference. I'm no expert on chemistry; I learned on this newsgroup
that water electrolysis is endothermic. There are many reactions going on in pyrolysis, and I have no idea
whether some of them might be exothermic, or whether the sum of the reactions is exothermic.
The task of heating coal to to over 1000 degrees would seem to overwhelm any gain from reaction heat, but who
knows?
Mike Ackerman
Don Lancaster
>
> william mook wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm sorry, I thought I gave the attribution (a pointer to the URL you
> > listed.)
> >
> > Heck, Mike, if you're reading Coal Age magazine closely enough to
> > recognize an unattributed snipped about pyrolysis, what are you doing
> > playing at not knowing how carbonization works? Clearly you have
> > another agenda altogether asking questions you plainly know the answer
> > to.
> >
>
> Just a few seconds on Google got me the reference. I'm no expert on chemistry; I learned on this newsgroup
> that water electrolysis is endothermic.
>
Water electrolysis CAN BE up to one sixth endothermic at uselessly low
production rates.
It is normally exothermic in most practical generation situations.
See http://www.tinaja.com/glib/muse153.pdf
--
Many thanks,
Don Lancaster
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
voice: (928)428-4073 email: d...@tinaja.com fax 847-574-1462
Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
Tequila
adventageous. ...in the FT process...are costly catalysts consumed??
are there other Capital costs?
I would think that there would be many countries with abundant Labour resources,
combinded with at least minimal coal resources, that would want to turn their
LABOUR, and a small amount of carbon, into an exportable liquid fuel.
(comments are welcome) :)
Bill Ward
<teq...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>Think about coal liquifaction is areas worldwide where finacnces are
>adventageous. ...in the FT process...are costly catalysts consumed??
>are there other Capital costs?
>I would think that there would be many countries with abundant Labour resources,
>combinded with at least minimal coal resources, that would want to turn their
>LABOUR, and a small amount of carbon, into an exportable liquid fuel.
>(comments are welcome) :)
>
Hmmm. Is that a new twist on Soylent Green?
Regards,
Bill Ward
william mook
I was thinking the Matrix.
But, seriously, China is a good example of what Bill Ward is talking
about. Check it out;
http://www.china.com.cn/english/2000/Sep/2084.htm
Since China has large coal reserves, large labor pools, and spends
lots of money on foreign oil, it makes some sense for them to buy the
technology and build up a capacity to convert coal to oil to reduce
the recurring costs of continued industrialization.
pragmatist
> bw...@ix.netcom.com (Bill Ward) wrote in message news:<3eede64b...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
> > On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 02:24:39 -0500, Tequila
> > <teq...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> >
> > >Think about coal liquifaction is areas worldwide where finacnces are
> > >adventageous. ...in the FT process...are costly catalysts consumed??
> > >are there other Capital costs?
It seems to me that by getting involved so deeply in the
efficiencies, both thermal and economic, we are tacitly accepting a
devils bargain.
Only once in this thread, and there indirectly, was any reference
made to the ecological costs of extracting all this extra coal.
I have traveled in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and have seen the
results.
Committing our economy to that much direct destruction of the
enviornment to retain an existing greenhouse unfriendly technology for
an additional 100 years seems shortsighted at best.
The cavilier treatment of the issue of the extra C02 emissions
involved seemed especially irresponsible.
As fossil fuel rescources decline we will eventually be forced to
convert to renewable and/or nuclear power anyway and will be doing so
under conditions that have degraded further than neccessary due to our
delay.
Would we not be far better advised to begin that conversion now?
Shouldn't the subsidies mentioned be better directed to solar and
renewable power?
The Chinese and former SSRs have an instructive recent history of
creating ecological disasters in the name of industrialization.
Perhaps we can heed the lesson.
I am more than 80% gearhead, but you guys managed to awaken the 20%
tree-hugger.
Pragmatist.
william mook
liquefaction add tremendously to greenhouse gas emissions. The syngas
process that takes steam and carbon monoxide and makes hydrogen and
carbon dioxide, doesn't exist in oil distillation for example. Which
makes coal liquefaction as now practiced 10x or more costly in
environmental terms than use of oil.
While the mining methods used in Pennsylvania and Virginia were
regrettable, new methods with different geology will produce
different, less troubling results. Clearly we cannot generalize from
one bad experience.
While the costs of coal liquefaction may be high, the only reason it
is being considered is that the cost of direct hydrogen economy is
higher still. After all, the world's entire capital base runs on oil.
So, its not just a question of changing over a few refineries. Its a
question of changing over *everything*.
While its possible to do this, its costly too. So, in the interim,
coal to oil may make some sense as a stopgap measure. I do believe as
you however, we shouldn't come to rely on coal to oil exclusively.
That's why I'm very interested in kinetic energy storage and
transmission which I've mentioned elsewhere - along with hydrogen
economy, which has so many supporters, I don't need to add my voice.
Carl R Horn CPA
William,
Is this not a death sprial for civilization as currently formed?
Using every more difficult to find fossil energy sources to convert to
other fuels.... Taking an ever larger share of the energy budget to
create the energy. Wait a minute folk don't eat, heat your home, or
travel for the next ten years while we build hundreds of nuke plants, coal
to oil what evers.
Seems like major changes are coming soon.
Have you planeted your garden this summer?
Carl
pragmatist
While you are of course right to consider the cost, (a decision
process with which I am far too familiar, having been around long
enough to have been involved in the electric heating fiasco of the
70's), I must argue that some other regulatory criterion is needed.
If we let Government do it you know they'll screw it up, do far more
damage to individual autonomy than neccessary, and provide loopholes
for moneyed interests. Look at the repeal of the 'fleet efficiency`
requirement, what happened to the carbon limit laws, and the rejection
of the Kyoto accords.
The most workable mechanism, it seems, is social disapproval.
It seems to be working well for drunk driving, not so well but still
having some effect on drug use. If some epithet, ('carbon hog` eg.),
came into favor, the 'fasion statement` attraction of the SUV might
disappear.
Might be worth a separate thread....here and in soc./anthro maybe.
Pragmatist "Use a bigger hammer".
The Enlightenment
> Think about coal liquifaction is areas worldwide where finacnces are
> adventageous. ...in the FT process...are costly catalysts consumed??
The fischer tropsch archive says that 30% of German WW2 costs were
associated with catalyst maintenace costs. The catalysts lost
activity but could be either regenerated or recycled with nitric acid.
The Germans managed to get catalytsc life extended from 4-5 months to
8-10 months as the war progressed and this cost proportion dropped.
More modern catalysts are ofcourse longer lasting, more selective and
have a much higher conversion rate something which greatly effects the
downstream conversion costs greatly. Because of the shortage of
cobalt the germans developed iron based catalysts which were cheaper.
Also the Germans used 2 major processes duing the war:
1 13 major Fischer Tropsch for diesel, low grade gasoline and chemical
feeds.
(normally used with black coal)
2 16 Bergius High Pressure (700 atmospherest) Hydrogenation for high
grade aviation fuels. (Worked well with undesirable brown coal)
They also used some Bergius type Pyrolisis which could easily produce
a barrel of oil plus lots of coke like char. This oil could be mixed
with synthetic oils to get better product.
The Fischer Tropsh plants could also produce alcahols like methanol as
an octane number additive improver. (methanol is very efficently
produced)
The alcahol 'iso-butanol' could be produced over a chromium catalyst,
this was then dehydrated to iso-butane and polymerised to form
iso-octane that would be used to impove the RON of ordinary fuels.
Additionaly many "mini" fischer tropsch plants were hidden in the
forrest after all of the orther plants were destroyed by bombing but
their output was pretty small.
Most modern processes would be refinement of the German research. The
only one which is different to any great extent is Mobils "MTG" where
methanol is first efficiently made out of coal or natural gas and this
is reacted in the catalytically activate pores of a zolite material to
produce almost perfect gasoline.
> are there other Capital costs?
Yes, large capital costs. Gasifiers, Coal handling equipment,
desulpherization, the FT compressors and reactors plus the downstream
refinery, wax cracker and recovery systems.
It's possible to get the costs down by running in conjunction with a
coal-gasifier turbine electricty plant by sharing the gasifier and
burning of undersirable tail gases instead of recovering them.
If natural gas is used as the feedstock (its not so difficult to
convert to syngas) and if the target is diesel (the FT process works
best at linear chains of molecules like diesel instead of petrol with
its isomers like iso-octane) then FT refineries are competive with
ordinary ones already.
> I would think that there would be many countries with abundant Labour
> resources,
> combinded with at least minimal coal resources, that would want to turn their
> LABOUR, and a small amount of carbon, into an exportable liquid fuel.
> (comments are welcome) :)
>
Maybe if the target is diesel and gasifier advances eg fluidised bed
and plasma lance. It might be usefull for import substitution.
Roland Paterson-Jones
news:<3eede64b...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
> > On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 02:24:39 -0500, Tequila
> >
> > >adventageous. ...in the FT process...are costly catalysts consumed??
> > >are there other Capital costs?
> > >I would think that there would be many countries with abundant Labour
resources,
> > >combinded with at least minimal coal resources, that would want to turn
their
> > >LABOUR, and a small amount of carbon, into an exportable liquid fuel.
> > >(comments are welcome) :)
> >
> > Hmmm. Is that a new twist on Soylent Green?
> But, seriously, China is a good example of what Bill Ward is talking
> about. Check it out;
>
> http://www.china.com.cn/english/2000/Sep/2084.htm
>
> Since China has large coal reserves, large labor pools, and spends
> lots of money on foreign oil, it makes some sense for them to buy the
> technology and build up a capacity to convert coal to oil to reduce
> the recurring costs of continued industrialization.
Hey, how about South Africa? On the other hand the coal-to-oil side of Sasol
seems to be subsiding. The petrol products have always been subsidised,
which made loads more sense under the insular apartheid economy and
mentality than today.
However, we still have loads of coal, and loads of labour. A good fit, we
just need the enabling technology ;)
Roland
--
Roland and Lisa Paterson-Jones
Forest Lodge, Stirrup Lane, Hout Bay
http://www.rolandpj.com/forest-lodge
mobile: +27 72 386 8045
e-mail: forest...@rolandpj.com
Michael
believing what else you write. Can you enlighten?
william mook
I can produce a solar electric PV panel using VMJ cells and a unique
concentrator system for about $45 per kilowatt.
This low capital cost translates to a low energy cost of $2 per
megawatt-hour when these panels are used in the US southwest.
Since a megawatt-hour can produce 20 kg of hydrogen through the
electrolysis of water, and since the cost of electricity is the major
cost of hydrogen produced this way, this means a kg of hydrogen can be
produced for about $0.10
Since a gallon of gasoline has about the same energy as a kg of
hydrogen, hydrogen at this price has the potential to compete with
gasoline as a fuel very effectively.
Of course, since a kg of hydrogen at these costs can be combined with
six kg of carbon to create seven kg of hydrocarbon fuels - making two
gallons of synthetic solar gas - this is clearly an easy way to make
use of the hydrogen created as a fuel in today's economy - setup as it
is to burn hydrocarbons.
Will hydrogen ever be used as more than a feedstock for synthetic
hydrocarbons? Who knows? But, my system makes hydrogen at such low
costs, that the first use will promote serious exploration of the
second. And after that, the market will tell us what to do next.
william mook
South Africa already produces 2/3 of its gasoline from coal. They
would benefit greatly from solar hydrogen augmentation of their
existing conversion process. South Africa is also a big potential
consumer of low cost solar power systems that can be used to improve
life for the vast majority of people in that country.
william mook
> William,
>
> Is this not a death sprial for civilization as currently formed?
>
> Using every more difficult to find fossil energy sources to convert to
> other fuels....
No. That's not what we're doing. When we tap into solar energy we
are tapping into resources arriving here off-world. We are making use
in a significant way resources beyond the limits of our current
frontiers. The Earth intercepts 100,000x more energy from the sun
than we could possibly use. The sun produces 1,200,000,000x more
energy than the Earth intercepts. Clearly, we're not diminishing
solar power in any way by using it.
> Taking an ever larger share of the energy budget to
> create the energy.
Yes, this is a recipe for disaster. That's why attention paid to
dollars per kilowatt-hour is so important. We have achieved peak
wattage costs that are 1% of any competing solar power system, and so
our energy costs are 10% of any competing energy system. This means
we can use solar energy to create synthetic fuels cost efficiently.
> Wait a minute folk don't eat, heat your home, or
> travel for the next ten years while we build hundreds of nuke plants, coal
> to oil what evers.
Not necessary. Merely build systems to provide synthetic fuels that
match in every particular fuels already in use from feedstocks derived
in part from off-world (sunlight). Then, once lower cost feedstocks
allow domination of the energy markets modify those feedstocks for
direct use, and expand the market for very low cost alternative fuels
worldwide - reducing costs all along to gain market share. Lower
energy costs will drive a massive economic expansion, and
unconstrained by material limits, political and economic stability
will become as common for the world as it is now for the US.
After all, 80% of the people in the world, are ill-served by the
present system and limits of critical resources imply they will always
be ill-served. They're a ready market available for any scalable cost
efficient system we care to come up with.
> Seems like major changes are coming soon.
Yes and properly managed and developed, these changes will result in
higher living standards and an expansion of opportunities throughout
the world - not collapse. It all revolves around the cost per watt
of solar energy.
> Have you planeted your garden this summer?
>
> Carl
I've planted a garden of solar collectors, check it out;