Back to Coal
Germany did it in WWII, we can do it now.
Posted on 04/19/2006 5:56:25 AM PDT by aculeus
As the cost of oil soars and worries over the U.S. dependence on foreign petroleum escalate, coal is becoming an increasingly attractive alternative as a feedstock to make a range of fuels. Now chemists have invented a new catalytic process that could increase the yield of a clean form of diesel made from coal.
The method, described in the current issue of the journal Science, uses a pair of catalysts to improve the yield of diesel fuel from Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis, a nearly century-old chemical technique for reacting carbon monoxide and hydrogen to make hydrocarbons. The mixture of gases is produced by heating coal. Although Germany used the process during World War II to convert coal to fuel for its military vehicles, F-T synthesis has generally been too expensive to compete with oil.
Part of the problem with the F-T process is that it produces a mixture of hydrocarbons -- many of which are not useful as fuel. But in the recent research, Alan Goldman, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, and Maurice Brookhart, professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, use catalysts to convert these undesirable hydrocarbons into diesel. The catalysts work by rearranging the carbon atoms, transforming six-carbon atom hydrocarbons, for example, into two- and ten-carbon atom hydrocarbons. The ten-carbon version can power diesel engines. The first catalyst removes hydrogen atoms, which allows the second catalyst to rearrange the carbon atoms. Then the first catalyst restores the hydrogen, to form fuel.
Diesel fuel produced in this way has several potential advantages. Ordinary diesel contains molecules, called aromatics, that, when combusted, produce particulates, Goldman says. But the diesel formed by the new catalysts does not include aromatics, so it burns much cleaner, overcoming one of the major objections to diesel fuel. This could lead to more vehicles using diesel engines, which are about 30 percent more efficient than gasoline engines.
But the biggest advantage may be that the United States has huge amounts of coal: "We have as much energy in coal as the rest of the world has in oil. That's enough to last us the next hundred years or so," Goldman says. Thus, a more efficient, and so less expensive method of converting coal to diesel could significantly cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil, and do so for a long time.
"When I saw this I thought it was really a terrific contribution that could be very important," says Richard Schrock, professor of chemistry at MIT, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005, with two other scientists, for discovering the type of catalyst used in the second step. Combining two catalysts this way "is pretty rare," he says. "You can't just throw any two things together and expect to get the results you anticipated."
According to Robert Grubbs, professor of chemistry at Caltech, who shared the Nobel prize with Schrock, "The key is finding catalyst systems that are compatible, and will operate at the temperatures where you can do both processes together."
At this time, the new catalytic method is still a proof-of-concept, and not ready for commercial use. For example, the second catalyst tends to break down. But Schrock says this problem should be solvable: "It's theoretically possible that this could become practical. I e-mailed Alan Goldman and said, 'Look, we've got a lot of catalysts, and I can think of some things that might be thermally more stable.' So I'm going to send him some catalysts, and he's going to try them out."
It also might be possible to make catalysts that use products from the first reaction to regenerate themselves. "Then the catalyst wouldn't die, and you could in fact keep the reaction going," says Schrock.
According to the Governors of WV and MT, the break-even point for coal gasification is $43/bbl.
I believe during the latter part of WWII, the german luftwaffe planes were flown with a fuel derived from coal.
IIRC, Shell Oil is involved in a joint venture with PA and some other entities, building a gasification plant in PA right now.
Lots of energy sources in this price range, but require large investments. Few will take this risk when the arab cost of production is $4-5. (which means they can drop the price under your cost anytime they want) This difference is the reason that the arabs have played us on this global oil market since 1973. The only solution is to produce all of their oil and then get on to the alternatives.....which I think is what we are doing.
Long term contracts at a firm fixed price can redistribute the risk faced due to Arab, Mexican or Russian price arbitrage. Span the contract over about 7 years, and a potential arbitrager will suffer a great deal in the process.
The problem is that a futures market for an untested fuel production system doesn't exist. Nobody is going to take the other side of the counterparty risk.
bump
Europe is miles ahead of us in clean diesels.
I think you got it just right.
Everything will take care of itself in the long run when the true cost of oil increases to the point that it makes various other alternatives feasible.
In the meantime though, we'll no doubt do everything we can to screw that up via politics.
Arab countries do not have the ability to produce enough oil to meet the worlds oil demand.
No.
T.Y.
All foreign taxes paid by US corporations including oil companies are deducted as credits from US taxes payable, dollar for dollar. The "royalties" paid by US oil companies were (during my working years) considered taxes by IRS and were therefore deducted from US taxes payable.
PING! to #17
It was my understanding that during the reign of the Sha, Kissinger suggested to him that he raise the royalties on oil in order to help Iran to pay for arms from the US. Kissinger's thought was that since these would be deductible by the oil companies, their relationship with the administration would not be hurt, the arms industries would get a boost, the Sha would get his arms and the only one to get hurt would be the US drivers.
Its not an untested product. Its oil. You are selling oil for delivery on a futures market. What does the buyer have to lose? They will only pay if there is product to take possession of?
Another solution: render mideast oil supplies unusable. The resulting economic turmoil would insure rapid development of domestic sources through good ol' capitalistic greed leaving us stronger and the Arabs with nothing but sheep and camels to fight over as is the natural order of things.
Another question, when OPEC raises the price/bbl, are they raising the actual price, or are they raising the royalties (much as a 'severance tax')?
Big Red gets a new life...woo hoo!
Yes.
Thanks, as you can tell, economics is not my strong suit.
}:^(
Paging Dr. Huffman, Dr. Huffman, diesel thread.
having sat behind a diesel bus, there is nothing clean about diesel
OPEC does not really set the price of oil. They set production quotas for their members. In general, assuming stable demand, More production = lower price. Less production = higher price.
Of course I understand that futures is hedging and that buying a commodity at a future price can work against you.
But contracts for deliver on the futures market take many different structures and need not involve upfront payment. For example, growing up farming, we sold a portion of our future crop in the Spring for delivery the following Spring. We never collected a dime until we delivered. Failing to deliver, we were responsible to purchase commodity to deliver, at then current prices. This is how oil products are generally contracted. e.g. the airlines. If you had to pay 100% up front, it wouldn't be a futures market, it would be the current market with stockpiling/warehousing.
Why? The oil supplier is hedging against falling prices, the purchaser is hedging against rising prices. Both are willing to settle on something they can live with.
Wind generated power is being sold in this fashion now in order to back its capitalization costs. Users agree to pay a set amount (lock in) electrical rates for a given period. So far they are doing a booming business.
The example here would be to contract the coal-oil for delivery at $55 a barrel in a large enough quantity to recoup for your capitalization costs.
If oil goes below the profit threshold, you will go out of business, but the investors will at least break even. If oil holds or increases, you sell your non-contracted product at market prices.
Read the article.
I'm waiting for the turbo diesel hybrid, or just a plain turbo diesel would be good too.
Diesel bump
If I understand this right, then even OPEC is being held hostage by the former Dot Com day traders that have infested the commodities markets. Albeit an advantage to them (OPEC) presently.
My back yard bio-diesel plant makes fuel at $1.00 a gallon....only downside is getting up at 4am to go ground the neighborhood to suck out waste vege oil from out back of restaurants.
It's a market and those traders take their chances. OPEC could bankrupt them all in an instant if they decided for some reason to open the spigots.
IMHO, neither OPEC or the day traders are setting price right now. A very active global economy, especially in China and India, is driving oil demand to ever higher levels. That's basically 2 billion additional people who now have acquired a taste for oil.
ground = around........need more coffee
How does that work??? I'd like to convert some of my cars to E85-E100... would a simple still work?
There are many different grades of oil.. different oil requires different forms of refining. Whoever is at the other end of the futures contract would need to know with good certainty the characteristics i.e. density, sulpher content, etc.
What does the buyer have to lose? They will only pay if there is product to take possession of?
Let's say this is a conventional oil and my above problem does not exist. The coal-to-oil produce enters into a futures contract to sell some amount, let's say 1 million barrels on 6/30/2010 to somebody who needs 1 million barrels on 6/30/2010. That somebody is going to use the oil to produce a chemical... this chemical venture is profitable for oil at $70/barrel, but rapidly loses profitability as oil goes above $70. The bank that is financing the chemical venture thus demands that in order to get the financing, the chemcial venture must lock in its oil cost at $70 or below in the futures market.
The chemical venture enters into the futures contract. On 6/30/2010, oil is $140 dollars a barrel. The coal-to-oil company can't deliver because hey, well, it was an untested product and we ran into production difficulties. Chemical company goes out of business, bank loses its loan.
Actually, this doesn't happen because the company doesn't enter into the futures contract with someone with questionable ability to deliver in the first place.
I recognize that there are various ways to structure the futures contract. My over-simplified example lumped the costs that will truly be sunk (both broker fees, etc. and lost opportunity cost for the committed money) with the final cost. Still, the sunk costs will be significant, on a significant buy. I think we'd need more than laboratory studies before that becomes economically attractive.
Oil is still sucked from the ground at $2 a barrel. Nothing comes close to competing with this. However, when easy oil is gone, these processes will be used, and oil will be in the vicinity of $200 a barrel. It is the modern thing to do in business to find fees for this and fees for that. Look at the telephone bill and all the little charges for taxes and other things they make; everything comes with charges and fuel for vehicles is no different. There will be fees for gasoline from coal that haven't yet been invented in legislatures and boardrooms. We will view $3 gasoline as the good old days, and pretty soon.
How? War? Thats a real possibility, given the Iran situation.
I have no viable info on that.
According to the Governors of WV and MT, the break-even point for coal gasification is $43/bbl.The example here would be to contract the coal-oil for delivery at $55 a barrel in a large enough quantity to recoup for your capitalization costs.2 posted on 04/19/2006 9:00:48 AM EDT by Roccus
If oil goes below the profit threshold, you will go out of business, but the investors will at least break even. If oil holds or increases, you sell your non-contracted product at market prices.
The issue is the capital cost, and the risk which is associated with the economic factors of the investment. But that is not unique to petroleum products; any brick-and-mortar investment has some risk the hindsight will shot that it was put in the wrong place at the wrong time.Selling oil futures is a way of spreading out the risk that petroleum prices will come back down, in exchange for assurance that it won't go further up. Let's say that half of the $43/bbl figure would go to the coal miner, and 40% of it would go into capital equipment, and 10% would go into labor. Since that was quoted as a break-even cost, you really need confidence the price will be 10% higher than that in order to be worthwhile.
But once you pour the cement and erect the steel, the price of petroleum would have to drop below the cost of the coal and the labor before it would be logical to shut down.
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