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Among our many reports documenting the development, by the companies which became ExxonMobil, of a variety of Coal conversion and liquefaction technologies, in ongoing efforts that spanned decades, we more recently submitted one, just this past September, which revealed the somewhat startling fact that our US Government had actually, with our tax money, not only paid Exxon to refine Coal liquefaction science; but, had allowed them to establish and retain primary ownership rights to the US Patent that evolved from their public-financed CoalTL work.
Some details from that earlier report are:
"United States Patent 4,123,347 - Coal Liquefaction Process; October, 1978; Assignee: Exxon Research and Engineering Company, NJ; "Government Interests: The government of the United States of America has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. E(49-18)-2353 awarded by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration.".
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United States Patent: 4052292
The Mobil Oil technology we report herein is similar in two respects to quite a few others we have previously brought to your attention.
First, as in our recent dispatch concerning: "United States Patent 4,111,787 - Staged Hydroconversion of an Oil-Coal Mixture", which was issued in September, 1978, to Exxon, Mobil herein utilizes a hydrocarbon oil, which can, we submit, be produced via the destructive distillation of Coal, as in a Coke oven, to dissolve more raw Coal into a liquid product that can then be "hydrotreated", and otherwise upgraded, in rather standard petroleum refining facilities, and made thereby to produce conventional liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Second, in further confirmation of several of our earlier reports, renewable and Carbon-recycling cellulose can be utilized as a raw material, along with Coal, in such direct liquefaction technologies.
But, since Mobil is intent on making this seem to be a process that requires a large amount of conventional petroleum refinery by-product to make it work, some advance notes are in order.
Although Mobil is careful to repeat that products from various stages of oil refining are to be used, they do specify and identify, deep within their text: "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon constituents such as naphthalene, dimethylnaphthalene, anthracene, phenanthrene, fluorene, chrysene, pyrene, perylene, diphenyl, benzothiophene, and their derivatives" as suitable solvents for the dissolution of "coal and wood mixtures".
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Recent Progress in the Direct Liquefaction of Coal -- LUMPKIN 239 (4842): 873 -- Science
Herein, from Amoco, we learn that, in 1988, the oil industry knew how to make a crude oil equivalent, from Coal, for $35 per barrel.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"Recent Progress in the Direct Liquefaction of Coal
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Coal Liquefaction
As documented herein, the cost, in 1974, of producing liquid oil refinery feedstock, from Coal, in the US, was calculated, by the National Petroleum Council, to range between $6.50 and $7.50 per barrel.
The estimates were based, apparently, on CoalTL experimental and pilot plant data accumulated by the Office of Coal Research and the US Bureau of Mines; and, perhaps, from the commercial experience of South Africa's SASOL.
Throughout 1973, the cost of traditional crude oil ranged between $3.30 and $3.60 per barrel.
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United States Patent: 4111787
This past July, we presented information concerning: "United States Patent 4,094,765 - Coal Liquefaction Process" which was assigned, in June of 1978, to Exxon Research and Engineering Company.
In the process of that invention, according to the Patent Abstract, "coal liquefaction chargestock is first treated with a hydrogen sulfide-containing gas and thereafter subjected to coal liquefaction conditions" and, the Coal was blended with Coal oils, or Coal tars, as in "naphthenic hydrocarbons" and "phenolic materials" before being so treated with hydrogen sulfide.
Herein, we see that Exxon were so encouraged by the economic and technical implications of that invention that they, using the same team of scientists, continued development of the same technology, and were, just months later, awarded yet another US Patent for improvements they had made on it.
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