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We have thoroughly documented that multiple and various technologies exist which would enable the United States to attain a level of liquid fuel self-sufficiency by converting her abundant coal into liquid fuels. The Fischer-Tropsch method of coal-to-liquid conversion seems to be the one the public at large is most aware of, but we have documented for you other processes of coal conversion, including at least two originating in the United States: The (Lewis) Karrick Process, developed by the US Bureau of Mines, and the West Virginia Process invented by WVU.
But, it is one of the lesser-known coal-to-liquid conversion technologies, developed many years ago in Europe, which was, like Sabatier's technology for recycling Carbon Dioxide into fuel, given the distinction of being awarded what is, perhaps, the world's most prestigious acknowledgement of scientific achievement, the Nobel Prize.
Like much, though, about the entire subject of converting coal into liquid fuels, the award was obscured and hidden; disguised by the way in which it was made and by how it was labeled.
In 1931, the Nobel Committee awarded their Prize, in Chemistry, to joint recipients who independently developed similar technologies referred to, by the Committee, generically, as "High Pressure Techniques".
It is only in the actual Presentation Speech, made by one "Professor W. Palmar, Member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences", on December 10, 1931, that what the Prize was actually being awarded for becomes clear.
Excerpts from that speech follow. Make very special note of the second paragraph. Additional comment follows:
"The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1931
Presentation Speech
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Under Alfred Nobel's will, the Nobel Prizes are to be awarded to those who have been of the greatest benefit to mankind and, particularly in respect of the Prize for Chemistry, it is stipulated that this shall go to the person who has made the most important discovery or improvement in chemistry.
The purpose of this work was to resolve a problem which, in importance, can be compared with the nitrogen problem, namely the manufacture of oils and liquid fuels from solid coal, such as pit coal and brown coal (lignite) - which is also known as liquefaction of coal. The products mentioned, which consist, in various proportions, of carbon and hydrogen and which are therefore referred to as hydrocarbons, were considered necessary to modern living, with vehicles and ships being run on petrol and other liquid fuels. Since the natural stocks of petroleum are fairly restricted, we would sooner or later be faced with the need to restrict the use of oil for the purpose mentioned or even to stop using it altogether, unless methods were available whereby these oil products could be artificially made from other crude materials at an acceptable price.
According to the composition of the coal, it is possible in this way to extract 50 to 70% of the carbon contained in the raw material in the form of oils, of which benzine represents about one-third, the remainder comprising diesel oil, fuel oil, and asphalt, together with carbolic acid and other phenols.
At the outset, Bergius worked without catalysts. Since the commencement of collaboration between him and I.G. - or "Industrial Giant" as these letters have come to be interpreted in America - catalysts have been used. This collaboration with I.G., who were able to make available their tremendous experience in the field of high-pressure technique and contact substances, certainly promoted the extremely important development which the liquefaction of coal by Bergius' methods then underwent. In the giant Leuna plant founded in 1926, near Merseburg in Saxony, the year 1930 saw the production of no less than 250,000 tons of benzine from brown coal, of the carbon content of which no less than 80% was utilized in the form of oils. In Germany, a large plant was also set up for processing the residues of oil distillation and tar oils. Steps have also been taken towards co-operation with the oil syndicates in America, where the high-pressure method is applied to a considerable degree, especially in order to convert not readily volatile hydrocarbons or crude oil into far more valuable benzine. The ease with which the hydrogen treatment under pressure can be adapted to the various problems of the petroleum industry is obviously of the utmost importance. As far as our country is concerned, the possibility of obtaining oils from timber by high-pressure processing is of particular importance.
General Director Bergius. You undertook to tackle a problem which, in its importance for humanity, can be compared with the solution of the nitrogen question. You have shown how, by the injection of hydrogen under pressure, pit coal, brown coal, and other carbon-bearing materials can be processed to liquid fuels which are considered indispensable in modern life for the propulsion of ships and vehicles. You have thereby obviated the danger which threatened of exhaustion of petroleum deposits, an event which must have happened sooner or later. In your work, you arrived at the high-pressure method quite independently. On the basis of your work, a powerful industry has already been formed.
By virtue of this, the Academy wishes to thank you and congratulate you, and requests you to receive the distinction from the hands of His Majesty the King."
First of all, let's make note of the fact that, even as early as 1931, several problems had, as we have tediously documented and pointed out to be possible, been solved by the technology of converting coal into liquid fuels: The petroleum shortage, recognized even then, was "obviated" by the ability to liquefy coal. Sustainability was addressed through the applicability of coal conversion technology to, as we have many times documented to be practical, renewable resources, as in: "The ease with which the (technology) can be adapted to the various problems of the petroleum industry is obviously of the utmost importance. As far as our country is concerned, the possibility of obtaining oils from timber by high-pressure processing is of particular importance."
That potential of sustainability, of course, is in addition to the Committee's earlier award of the Nobel to Paul Sabatier for demonstrating that Carbon Dioxide could be recycled into methane.
In sum, it is clear: As early as 1931, the pending "oil crisis" and the issue of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide had both been, as confirmed by the unimpeachable Nobel Committee, solved. Coal could be converted into liquid fuels, and CO2 could be recycled.
Why, almost a century later, is that news not broadly known? And, why, now, are we not doing something about it all?
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We have lately been documenting how the valuable co-product of coal use, Carbon Dioxide, can be utilized in the synthesis of gaseous and liquid fuels. We had also introduced some technologies wherein CO2 can be used as a raw material for plastics manufacturing. Herein is yet more documentation attesting to the value of Carbon Dioxide for that purpose; and, it's value is greater than at first might appear.
Additional explanation follows the excerpt:
"Enrivonmentally Benign Urethane and Urea Synthesis in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide
Author(s): YOSHIDA MASAAKI, SATO YOSHIKI, ABE MANABU, SATO AKINAO
(Utsunomiya University., Faculty of Engineering, Japan)
Journal: Nippon Kagakkai Koen Yokoshu; Vol. 82nd; Page 117(2002)
Abstract: Instead of organic solvents which are toxic and flammable, when we used supercritical carbon dioxide which is none toxic and inflammable, the organic reactions were more effective and selective. On the case of urethane and urea synthesis, supercritical carbon dioxide was a direct raw material as a phosgene replacement."
Urethanes are extraordinarily useful organic compounds. The paint on your car is likely to be based on urethane. The pillow you lay your head on at night is likely to be urethane foam. And, as we've, in other places, for other reasons, documented, the Federal Highways Administration specifies two-component urethane grout as the best technology to stop groundwater leaks into road tunnels.It is what the State of WV should be using to rehabilitate the Wheeling Tunnels.
Unfortunately, in current manufacturing processes, the production of urethane can start with some dangerous chemicals; phosgene, otherwise known, and once used in warfare, as "mustard gas", among them. Worse, perhaps, phosgene is manufactured from chlorine gas, itself a decidedly unpleasant and dangerous material. Some chemical manufacturing facilities in the Ohio Valley manufacture urethanes, using those materials, and some unhealthy situations have, in the past, occurred.
In this technology, explained by Japanese researchers, Carbon Dioxide, as arises from coal use, serves as a very safe, even benign, replacement for some very dangerous stuff in the manufacture of some very valuable commercial products.
Wouldn't it be far better to use a relatively benign co-product of coal use, whose only immediate metabolic effect is to tickle your nose when you take a sip of the bubbly, to manufacture valuable urethanes and other plastics?
Carbon Dioxide is a valuable by-product of our coal use. We should be focused more on figuring out how to profitably use it, rather than on how to expensively stuff it all done geologic rat holes, thus subsidizing the greedy petroleum industry's oil-scavenging efforts; or, on how to tax the producers of it, our productive coal industries, out of existence via deceptive shell games like Cap & Trade.
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We submit this technical article, from Taiwan, as additional confirmation of the facts that, not only can Carbon Dioxide, as arises from our varied uses of coal, be recycled on an industrial basis into other useful and profitable materials, such as herein, again, the valuable liquid fuel, and gasoline and plastics raw material, Methanol; but, that the technologies to accomplish such transmutations are well-known around the world, except, apparently, in the coal-producing regions of the United States.
The excerpt:
Source: Catalysis Letters, Volume 83, Numbers 1-2, October 2002 , pp. 79-86(8)
Abstract:
Methanol synthesis from carbon dioxide hydrogenation was studied over ceria/
-alumina- and yttria-doped ceria (YDC)/-alumina-supported copper oxide catalysts to seek insight into the catalysis at metal–support interfaces. It was found that, in comparison with Cu/-Al2O3, the Cu/CeO2/-Al2O3-Al2O3 catalysts exhibited substantial enhancement in activity and selectivity toward methanol formation. The extent of enhancement was augmented by increased ceria loading on -alumina and with increased yttria doping into ceria. The enhancement is inferred to result from the synergistic effect between copper oxide and surface oxygen vacancies of ceria." and Cu/YDC/
We won't attempt getting into the esoterics of "ceria" and "yttria" catalyst doping. However, we note the "enhancement ... (of) ... methanol formation" from Carbon Dioxide. In other words, we know how to do it. We know how to reclaim and recycle Carbon Dioxide into products of value; and, we're getting better at it.
Makes a lot more sense, doesn't it, than trying to drill a deeper, and more expensive, rat hole to pump it all down; or, than attempting to tax our coal-use industries out of existence for co-producing it
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We earlier told you of Korean CO2 recycling developments, and herein is further confirmation of the fact that Korea, where Japan situated one of their military's coal-to-liquid conversion factories, as we've documented, during WWII, is working productively to exploit the economic potential of coal industry's primary by-product, Carbon Dioxide.
The excerpt:
"The selective synthesis of lower olefins(C2 - C4) by CO2 hydrogenation
Ho Kim, Dae-Ho Choi, Sang-Sung Nam, Myung-Jae Choi and Kyu-Wan Lee
Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, P.O. Box 107, Yusong, Taejon 305-600, Korea
Iron catalysts promoted with potassium and supported on ion-exchanged zeolite were examined for catalytic activity and product selectivity in the CO2 hydrogenation. The catalysts were prepared by impregnating the support with iron nitrate followed by calcination and in-situ reduction with hydrogen and were characterized by (various) technique(s). ... (test conditions) significantly improved the hydrogenation yield and the C2-C4 olefins selectivity. (Other conditions) resulted in an increased amount of methane production."
"Hydrogenation" should be a term now familiar to all our readers. Generically, it's how Germany and Japan converted coal into liquid fuels for their militaries during WWII.
We don't have the expertise to adequately explain what "olefins" are, and what can be done with them. But, in brief, they are hydrocarbons which can be used as raw materials in the further synthesis of fuels and plastics. And, "methane", which can be produced in an "increased amount", should be familiar to all involved in the coal industry. It can be used as a gaseous fuel, or, through known technology, be further synthesized into more complex hydrocarbons.
Since we can, it seems, turn Carbon Dioxide into such valuable products, doesn't it make a lot more sense to do THAT, rather than to cripple our coal-use industries, through imposing wasteful, and essentially fraudulent, Cap & Trade taxation schemes on them; or, through forcing them to support the imperious oil industry by subsidizing depleted petroleum reservoir-scraping efforts; efforts disguised under the neutral and innocent-sounding technical label of Sequestration?
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Excerpts from the enclosed link won't copy over well, so we'll summarize a bit of the information.
Several research organizations in Europe are, or were, collaborating on developments leading to a comprehensive technology for, as we have been documenting to be possible and, perhaps, practical, reclaiming Carbon Dioxide and converting it into fuels and chemicals.
The groups involved include:
The University of Messina, Italy
The Max Planck Institute, Germany
The University of Patras, Greece
Louis Pasteur University, France.
The formal title of their joint project is "Electrocatalytic Gas-Phase Conversion of CO2 in Confined Catalysts".
Details of the research objectives are stated, with some editing for concision, as:
"To demonstrate the feasibility of the ... conversion of CO2 to Fisher-Tropsch (FT) products (C1-C10 hydrocarbons and alcohols) as (an) alternative innovative process ... starting from CO2 instead of CO and
having a selective supplying of energy which allow the tuning of the product distribution. Scientific objectives of the projects are to ... improve the selective use of energy and tune the catalytic performances; demonstrate the feasibility of combining catalysts ... to develop new process options with possible potential applications in a range of other areas such as energy and chemical syntheses."
having a selective supplying of energy which allow the tuning of the product distribution. Scientific objectives of the projects are to ... improve the selective use of energy and tune the catalytic performances; demonstrate the feasibility of combining catalysts ... to develop new process options with possible potential applications in a range of other areas such as energy and chemical syntheses."
In other words, they are/were working to refine technologies for recycling, on an industrial basis, Carbon Dioxide into "Fischer-Tropsch products (i.e., liquid fuel - JtM) having "applications in ... energy and chemical syntheses".
According to dates specified in the full document, the project was supposed to have been completed a few years ago, but we have so far been unable to locate a final report, or other data.
Like much of the information regarding the conversion of coal into liquid fuels and the recycling of Carbon Dioxide into fuels and chemicals, the trail heads are easy enough to find, but the trails themselves seem to vanish after you take a few steps into the woods. Thing is: If the end results of coal-to-liquid and CO2 recycling efforts were negative, don't you think that Big Oil and the environmentalists would trumpet them, and make certain we all knew it? But, if the end results were positive, what would you expect? We would expect them to smother the baby with a pillow, as quietly as possible, and bury it in the garden.
Look back on the historical and technical documentation concerning the coal-to-liquid and CO2-recycling technologies we've been able to unearth for you thus far, some dating back a century, or more, and draw your own conclusions.
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