Topic: Gasoline from Coal

[Wetson]

I know the U.S. set up a pilot project for manufacturing gasoline from coal quite a few years ago.  Does anyone know if this process is still going on?  

Obviously it didn't quite catch on.  I'd never heard of it until I read about it on the web.  For the last part of WWII Germany also used this process because allied forces had cut off the supply of oil.  

Does anyone know about this process and what the cons are?  I figure the pros are obvious.

[paulk]

In WW2 Germany used two different processes (Fischer-Tropsch and Bergius) to make gasoline from coal.

Extracting gasoline from coal is slightly cheaper than extracting it from tar sands.  The reason it is not being done is because it is more energy efficient to convert coal into electricity.  A large percentage of North America's electricity output is generated from coal.

In an ideal world, we might switch all our electricity generation to nuclear and then free up coal for conversion to gasoline.  Unfortunately, North America rarely makes ideal energy decisions, and nuclear power generation is on the decline.

With gas prices so high, maybe things will change.  There is talk of starting up a coal to oil plant in Montana.

(Message edited by PaulK on August 30, 2005)

[eddie1234]

"In an ideal world, we might switch all our electricity generation to nuclear and then free up coal for conversion to gasoline."

I am opppose to nuclear power. It generates nuclear wastes and we just hide them under water inside lead boxes. Maybe we should throw it into the sun.

[paulk]

I used to be opposed to nuclear power too.

(I've also always been opposed to coal-fired electricity generation.  Coal plants pump enormous amounts of radioactivity into the air every year.  There are cancer clusters around most coal plants.  It is much worse than nuclear from any rational standpoint.)

But back to nuclear.  I used to be opposed.  The problem is, if you look at it from any realistic perspective and crunch the numbers, there just isn't any other practical alternative any longer.

To be honest, I'm kind of ashamed I was opposed to nuclear for so long.  Short-sighted.

[davidm]

Lots of private, early-stage investors are looking at coal very seriously.  Biodiesel and fuel cells get the hype, but under the covers, there is a lot of work going on in coal, gas, and oil based technologies.

[chris]

Diesel can be made from natural gas.  There are a lot of "stranded" ng pools where, until LNG really comes on, shipping is either not practical or cost too much.

It may sound crazy but these technologies are generally more expensive than the conventional production of gas/diesel.  I'm sure we must be close to a break even of the coal/gas or ng/diesel alternatives but when one considers the infrastructure required and the "not in my backyard/environmental issues" of "coal refineries"I cannot see these tech's taking off any time soon.  Even ethanol and biodiesel (when produced from veggies!) is, apparently, more expensive than current gas prices.

Uh oh, Neil's STFU thread comes to mind!  As I've no links to support these statements, consider them my opinion only

[sirAQUAMAN64]

I'm deeply opposed to nuclear as well.  

It's not so much the safety of the plant (which living between the two I do worry about, especially with incidents I've heard at Pickering and the delays in un-mothballing reactors) or the heavywater emissions into the lake, or the fact that a plane/terrorist could hit it, nuclear meltdown could happen, earthquake (Pickering is built on a mini-fault line), or the fact they're the only plants in the world located closest to a major populations because of radiation and disaster buffers. No, not for those reasons, but instead more to do with what Eddie said - the byproducts of the nuclear plants. You have toxic substances that aren't stable for thousands of years. The wastes are TRANSPORTED on the highway, flown, burried under the earth, or wherever. Heck, they don't even know where to put the spent nuclear rods themselves.  

Coal may be harmful, but you can somehow create a filter to purify air. Natural Gas may be harder to extract, but there's still lots of crude and such. There does need to be a push and further investment into renewable and sustainable energies though. Hydrogen in theory and in practice works, but just not in the scale necessary. And H2 is hard to produce itself. Wind power fields make a lot of sense to me, even if they look unsightly to some. What are we doing in the artic tundra anyhow??? Large dam projects like the one that was proposed in Quebec would displace homes and habitat, but they're more safe to me. Solar panels should be incentivised to go on rooftops and such. There's just so much we can do, and yes it costs money... but the total cost of nuclear and the POTENTIAL for catastrophe is incalculable. Even if the odds are so low, it's still dangerous - look at how many toxic spills organizations already have on boats and on the highways. Besides, the true costs of keeping those nuclear plants up and running/maintained - including the disposal and 'looking after' of waste - is in the multiple billions anyhow.  

People have to learn everything comes with a cost. I'd much rather have a cleaner and worry-free environment and pay 50% more for energy. Or 100% more - really, damage to the environment will wind up costing far more to human and the planet's health. Fack, I'd make a $1,000 contribution today to get rid of those nuclear suckas.

(Message edited by sirAQUAMAN64 on August 30, 2005)

[tpl]

Actually the amount of high level waste is very small compared to the THOUSANDS OF TONNES of stuff from Coal plants.  Most "nuclear waste" by volume is just left over overalls and rags and stuff like that.

High level wastes....to be precise... nuclear fule that has been "used up" enough to be inefficient for  a current gen nuclear power plant still has an emormous amount of energy ( hence of course why it is still radiating furiously for years. )  I think it is true that a lot of BS is spoken about the high level wastes. Yes there are materials that have 1/2 lives of thousands of years...they tend to be less energetic than the short lived isotopes that glow in the dark.

Those isotopes could be used in a different sort of power reactor and get more energy from them. Why not? obviously too expensive at the moment.

So I would definitely go for Nuclear fission while spending a A LOT OF MONEY on developing useful fusion power reactors.  
I would NOT build plants right beside cities... not in Canada...why the hell would I put a power plant beside a city?  I'd put them up in the NWT,Northern Ont and Que and accept wasting 20% of the power transmitting it.... after all power is transmitted from James Bay and that is far enough....maybe even put HydroQuebec's reactors up there where there is infrastructure and plenty of cooling water.  As for your penultimate point SirA I'd just embed the old reactors in concrete juts like they have done at Chernoybl and just leave them alone and spend the money on new ones...I am sure that the technology of nuclear reactors must have improved since Pickering was built.

To the original post.  Coal to oil works, inefficient, dirty but we have a lot of coal in this country... 85% of Southern AB is above a coal bed as well as Nova Scotia.  I dont know about the efficiency of coal to gas vs cola to electricity...so I believe Paulk.  My only point would be that when we need that coal it will be there to be used as a high density energy supply for whatever purpose.

And after all that.... yup... lest have dams everywhere that there is a good head of water. I'd bet that BC could supply the whole country with Electricity if you used all the Hydro power they hav.

[safristi]

Paulk & Tpl.....; UNFORTUNATELY are preaching to the BRAIN-WASHED 3 mile Island Hollywood Moofie set...all glitter,BS and NO FACTS...on to the next take ....take 135 ANTI_NUKE HORSERADISH..."Jane could ya curl up and glow a little more scarily!!!"

   France has the most tourists,lovely countryside,fab food HOT women and 90Plus percent NUCLEAR POWER....***MICHELIN on the Cap wif Julie Delpy fer ME......10tons of radioactive soot,particulate matter and asthma from McSquinty et al per diem fer US Ontario SUCKAS.......in Hawk..hack..POLLTARIO..now we wanna add more...sweet West Virginia I'm gonna Mont anna attack on that crapolla.....

[Wetson]

Don't forget Chernobyl.  I'm more for Nuclear Fussion instead of Fission.  Fussion is far safer and produces way more energy.  Unfortunately at this time it takes more energy to create the reaction than what is yielded as a result.

[safristi]

"GONE FISSION!!!"......

[paulk]

Most of the fears about nuclear are theoretical... what could happen... what might happen.

The problems with coal are real and tangible.  People are dying from cancer because of the emissions from coal fired power plants.  As far as I understand it, the radioactive emissions from burning coal cannot be filtered by scrubbers.  (Improved scrubbers would however cut down on mercury and particulate emissions, which might cut down on lung cancers.)

Despite all the fearmongering, that's why I changed my mind on nuclear.  The Pickering plant is a poor design, obviously, being built on a fault line with old technology.  Perhaps it should be shut down.  But that single example does not mean that the technology has not improved.  Modern technology, like the pebble reactors being built in China literally cannot melt down.  Japan and France are producing the majority of their power with nuclear, because it makes sense.  Nothing in life is perfect, but if you look at all of the possibilities, nuclear is the only solution that could meet many of our power needs while minimizing health and environmental problems.  Coal is irresponsible because of its health effects.

[barrie1]

I also think it is the lessor of the 2 evils.  WE need more power in this country and better ways of producing it. Nucleur seems to be the safest method yet next to Hydro Electric.

[Mdxtasy]

Have you guys thought about this alternative energy source?

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1513938.html

Imagine hooking up a few of them together.....now that's power.  

[claudster]

Thats a good idea.Probobly would not cost much either.How about turning off the lights when you don't need them or not setting A/C to rifrigerate in summer.Girlfriend had to wear sweather in office in July.Lots of megawatts wasted there.

[tenpenny]

When looked at rationally, nuclear is the only solution, but people aren't rational.  Too many Canadians keep mentioning 3MI and Chernobyl when talking about nuclear plants, which shows a basic misunderstanding about Canadian nuclear energy, and about those two plants and what happened there.

[tpl]

TheWetson:   I am all for fusion but... although we know it works ( H-Bombs and the Sun) making it work on a smaller scale is proving difficult... for a portion of my lifetime. practical fusion power has been 30 years in the future.

I suspect that if a LOT** of money was spent and a lot of clever people employed under wartime type rules ( get it done regardless, no lawyers) with parallel projects for the different ideas it might only take 20 years more.

Economics wise if one is spending on that scale one could start with covering all of NA' deserts with solar power collectors and get some serious space capability for solar power satellites while one was at it  

** 1/5 the US military budget or the whole Cdn health care budget for 20 years or so.

[Wetson]

The CANDU reactor when it was built was quite sophisticated.  Now that newer technology has come along it isn't anymore but it still works.  I did a paper in university on the CANDU reactor and it would be quite difficult for it to have a meltdown.... still possible but next to impossible.  The biggest potential more common problem it has is heavy water.  

Even if Canada gets rid of coal fired plants and builds cleaner energy producing plants we'll still have pollution issues because lots of it blows up from south of the border.