[Comus]

The process was developed by the Germans before World War II. The first SASOL coal gasification plant in South Africa was built in the 1960's with a larger one later on. Diesel would have to be in the $3 - $4 dollar a gallon range for coal based products to be competitive. $100 million would not build very much of a plant. Replacing one large petroleum refinery with a coal synfuels plant of equal capacity would cost billions of dollars and they are huge physically. SASOL 2 goes on for miles.

[I got the rope]

Coal gasification is different than what they are talking about in this article. This article is talking about coal liquifaction which was discovered here in the US I believe. I think it was a TEXACO/Department of Energy project.