Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University
We're sending this along as it relates to a concept we introduced much earlier on in this project.
The intro/abstract:
"This research seeks to test the scaling laws for the energy industry. Do the conditions that placed a premium on large-scale energy infrastructure persist, or are there economies of scale to be reaped from an aggregation of smaller units? This question will be applied to the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, a process by which an array of liquid hydrocarbons is produced from carbonaceous synthesis gas, through a case study that is in its own right a deliverable result. This case study will produce a model testing the potential advantages of liquid hydrocarbon production under the small-scale paradigm."
We've several times suggested the possibility of exploiting WV's scattered coal waste accumulations, and supported the concept by:
- citing the low BTU/high ash content of Great Plains lignite - which is being developed for the purposes of conversion at several locations - as being comparable to some WV coal spoil
- documenting the Schuykill, PA, coal waste-to-liquid effort, and
- noting Joe's WVU graduate research into the organic and chemical content of coal spoil and spoil leachate.
We did earlier suggest to you the potential of using mobile Fischer-Tropsch processors, or other coal conversion units if their technologies are amenable, to move about the state, as needed, to both clean up - and use - coal mine waste piles and seasonal, or occasional, accumulations of crop and forestry wastes.
Keep in mind that properly-designed and specified CTL conversion processors can utilize cellulose as a feed, which relates as well to our original suggestion that algal bio-reactors could be employed to clean CO2 from the off-gasses of CTL processes, with the algae then added to the raw material. However, if you've followed our dispatches in detail, you now know that CO2 can be directly reclaimed from CTL gas effluent and turned back into the CTL process stream, with simple additives, as additional raw material for liquid hydrocarbon synthesis.