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October 09, 2009

ScienceDirect - Fuel : Comparison of the effect of catalysts in coal liquefaction with tetralin and coal tar distillates 
 
In further support of our earlier documentation that coal processing by-products, such as coal tars, can be beneficial additives that enhance the efficiency of some direct coal liquefaction processes, we submit this research from Spain, where, as we've elsewhere documented, coal was converted into liquid fuels in at least one facility, using WWII-era German indirect coal liquefaction technology, until the 1960's.
 
As follows:
 
"Comparison of the effect of catalysts in coal liquefaction with tetralin and coal tar distillates 
J. Andres Legarreta, Blanca M. Caballero, Isabel de Marco, M. Jesus Chomón and Pedro M. Uría
Departamento de Ingeniería Química y del Medio Ambiente, Escuela de Ingenieros de Bilbao, Universidad del País Vasco, Alda, Urquijo s/n, 48013, Bilbao, Spain; 1996
Abstract
Special CoMo/Al2O3 catalysts were prepared for testing in coal liquefaction: a conventional CoMo/Al2O3 catalyst, one containing Zn as a second promoter and one having the alumina acidified with fluorine. Their activities were compared with that of red mud. The experiments were conducted in a stirred autoclave with a subbituminous coal and solvent (tetralin, anthracene oil or creosote oil) at 425°C and 17 MPa. The liquefaction products were fractioned into oils, asphaltenes and preasphaltenes with pentane, toluene and THF. The Co(Zn)Mo/Al2O3 catalysts have far higher activities than red mud. Zn and fluorine have beneficial effects on the catalyst activity. Coal tar distillates give higher conversions and oil + gas yields than tetralin when the prepared catalysts are used."
"Tetralin" is the hydrogen-donor solvent we have documented many times, from many sources, as being extremely useful in some direct coal liquefaction technologies, most especially WVU's "West Virginia Process".
But, note: "Coal tar distillates (which would include "anthracene oil or creosote oil")  give higher conversions and oil + gas yields than tetralin when the prepared catalysts are used." As we've elsewhere documented, coal products and by-products, the various coal tars and coal tar chemicals, can be beneficial, productive additives for a direct coal conversion process, perhaps by contributing more hydrogen.
Further, "Co(Zn)Mo/Al2O3 catalysts", though formulaically vague, might indicate these Spanish researchers were also working with zeolite catalysts, like the one specified by ExxonMobil in their "MTG"(r), methanol-to-gasoline, Process; wherein the methanol is posited to be made from coal. However, other research we've documented for you also indicates that Iron Group metals, i.e., "Co", Cobalt, as above, are useful coal conversion catalysts. And, both Zinc (Zn) and Molybdenum (Mo), as coal conversion catalysts, have also been elsewhere noted.
As we've earlier explained, the "red mud", named in the Abstract, is an iron-rich waste product of at least one commercial process for refining aluminum from bauxite ore. It is not an exotic material, but the mention of it again emphasizes the value of Iron-group metals in some coal-to-liquid conversion processes.

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October 09, 2009

Recent Progress in the Direct Liquefaction of Coal -- LUMPKIN 239 (4842): 873 -- Science
 
We previously noted the US Department of Energy's inexplicable assignment of oversight for a coal-to-liquid conversion development facility, in Kentucky, to Big Oil's Amoco Corporation, and the fact that the most detailed reportage on the project that we could find, also as we earlier reported, was published in Greece, or Turkey; somewhere "else", in any case.
 
But, we did manage to unearth the enclosed artifact, published directly from Amoco, it seems.
 
Comment follows:
 
"Recent Progress in the Direct Liquefaction of Coal
 
Robert E. Lumpkin, Director of Coal Utilization Projects for Amoco Corporation; P.O. Box 87703; Chicago, IL 60680
 
Science: 19 February 1988; Vol. 239; No. 4842; pp. 873 - 877; DOI: 10.1126/science.239.4842.873
 
Abstract/Summary:
Interest in direct coal liquefaction steadily decreased during the 1980s as the price of crude oil dropped; there is now only one integrated coal liquefaction pilot plant active full time in the United States. The economics derived early in the decade established the price of transportation fuels from coal at $80 per barrel or higher. However, there have been dramatic improvements in the technology since 1983 that have not been widely appreciated. Recent designs and cost estimates show that a 60 percent decrease in the cost of liquid fuels from coal to an equivalent of $35 per barrel for crude oil. Although this cost is not low enough to justify immediate commercialization, additional improvements have been identified that could make direct liquefaction an attractive way to produce gasoline and other conventional fuels."
A few statements bear emphasis:
First: "... there have been dramatic improvements in the technology (for converting coal into liquid fuels) since 1983 that have not been widely appreciated."
And: "Recent designs and cost estimates show that a 60 percent decrease in the cost of liquid fuels from coal to an equivalent of $35 per barrel".
This article was published in 1988. We submit that: "there have been dramatic improvements in the technology" (for converting coal into liquid fuels) since 1988 "that have not been widely appreciated", as our previous, and extensive, documentation of coal liquefaction developments should attest.
Moreover, coal, in 1988, could be converted into liquid petroleum-type products for the "equivalent of  $35 per barrel".
Petroleum, in 1988, according to web-based sources, was selling in the range of $23 to $30 per barrel, so the $35 per-barrel cost for coal-derived oil might not have seemed all that appealing.
However, oil prices, over the past few months of this year, August and September, 2009, hovered around the rough average of $130 per barrel.
Coal prices, in 1988, again according to web-based sources, had a spot market value, in Appalachia, that centered on $30 ton.
Now, in early October, 2009, Appalachian coal is selling at a little over $50 per ton.
And, again: "there have been dramatic improvements in the technology that have not been widely appreciated".
Do the math. Way past time we revisited the subject, a bit more publicly and thoroughly, don't you think? 
 

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October 08, 2009

Energy Bangla - Producing Diesel from Natural Gas or Coal - A magical technology for Bangladesh
 
The wording of this Bangladesh article might seem awkward to US readers, but the meaning should be quite clear: 
 
"Producing Diesel from Natural Gas or Coal - A magical technology for Bangladesh
 
It may sound something from the science fiction movies but it is a reality. Natural gas or coal can be commercially converted into liquid diesel oil and other valuable products. The synthesized diesel can run vehicles on the road or produce electricity in the power plant just like traditional petroleum diesel.
The technology will allow Bangladesh to successfully produce diesel oil utilizing own natural resources. So, the country will not need to import crude oil. Hence the technology offers dual benefit for Bangladesh. Firstly it saves a huge amount of hardly earned foreign currency. Secondly, it will make a pathway to utilize the natural gas and coal reserves of Bangladesh which is at present not utilized properly."
As different as Bangladesh might be from the United States, what's true there is true here: CoalTL would save "a huge amount of ... currency" and "utilize ... coal ... which is ... not utilized properly". CTL would be "A magical technology for"  West Virginia, for the United States of America, just as it is, and has been, as we have fully demonstrated and documented, a scientific and practical reality elsewhere in the world.
Pretend that pen in your hand is a wand, and make some magic happen.

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October 08, 2009

Microbial Conversions of Low Rank Coals - Nature Biotechnology
 
To further validate the substance of Joe's WVU research in the early Seventies, into the microbial conversion of carbonaceous coal mine wastes and low rank coals, and of Craig Venter's much more current research into carbon-converting microbes, we submit the enclosed from our own, US, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
 
Comment follows: (And, note: We are including this report's rather substantial list of documentation. The point of that being: Joe's WVU research, Craig Venter's current interests and this subject article are not isolated, speculative intellectual excursions. Just as very real, though deliberately-obscured, technologies exist which can convert coal into liquid fuels and chemicals, equally-obscured biotechnologies exist which would enable us, in a "green" way, to utilize low-rank, otherwise uneconomical coal deposits, and some coal mine refuse accumulations, to produce liquid fuels.
 
The excerpt, with additional comment following the extensive reference list:
 
"Microbial Conversions of Low Rank Coals
Brendlyn D. Faison
Chemical Technology Division, and Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831.
Coal is the United States' most abundant nonrenewable energy resource. However, the quality of many coals is too low to offset the practical, economic, and regulatory barriers to their utilization. A variety of bacterial and fungal species have been shown to attack low rank (i.e., low-quality) coals. Technologies based on these microbial activities may be useful for the conversion of these coals to more useful products, including high-quality fuels and chemicals. Substantial developmental work will be required in order for these microbial processes to become competitive with nonbiological processes. This review summarizes the microbiological and biochemical principles underlying microbial coal conversion as a basis for predicting the practical utility of coal bio-processes. 
 

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We can, it seems, use bio-technology to convert some coal mine wastes, and low-rank coals, into liquid fuels; a concept which should appeal to the evergreen corn ethanol crowd, who would rather see us fill up our fuel tanks with our food supply, but who might be mollified to see us, instead, cleaning up some of our coal mine refuse piles to manufacture liquid fuels in an economical, ecological, all-natural way.