Montana's governor eyes coal to solve U.S. fuel costs

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 8/26/05 | Adam Tanner - Reuters

[fallujah-nuker]

I like the synthetic oil from coal idea, but sending electricity from Montana to California is wasteful. Let California build nukes, or start unplugging all the hot tubs in Marin County.

[fallujah-nuker]

On History Channel last hight "Modern Marvels" was about about rubber, and how a synthetic rubber industry was built from scratch in a couple years.

[operation clinton cleanup]

"We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now."

I'm all for that....

[fallujah-nuker]

"Of course right when this plant starts to open the Saudi's will lower their price to try to put them out of business"

Right, they will strangle the baby in the crib. We cannot have both energy independence and free trade.

[fallujah-nuker]

"Big and I mean BIG trains hauling coal from Wyoming and ALASKA, on new rails."

We could electrify the railway mainlines too, that would reduce our use of diesel fuel.

[stboz]

Only thing we need to do is get off our asses, ...

Our Presidente will hire Mexicans to build the nukes that Americans aren't willing to......

[Publius6961]

Not necessarily, when they can keep selling their crude to China, India and elsewhere for $60-plus a barrel.

Sounds like a win-win to me. No problem then, unless China and India have coal deposits.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Gee : and here I thought OPEC was organised to set oil prices. I guess they dont have any reason for their existence.

OK, I guess I deserved that.

You are of course correct. The point that I was making was that they set prices by controlling supply. They can't just arbitrarily set a price. Consumers have to be willing to pay based on how easy or difficult it is to get what they need.

[76834]

That is thinking "Out of the Box"
What is needed, nukes powering electrified rails from Alaska to the lower 48.
If Canada has a problem, just digest Canada...

[truth_seeker]

"The technology is here and has been for decades.
Folks in South Africa do it every day.
The main thing is to make it economically feasable.

USA is the like 50 Arabias as far is coal is concerned.

For further reading I would refer you to:
http://www.sasol.com"

All built by American company: Fluor Corporation

[76834]

Have a lot of respect for Fluor, for Bechtel and all of the truly great American construction and engineering firms.

Worked for Fish Engineering and Brown and Root for most of my career.
Worked side by side with hands from Fluor and Bechtel on jobs and can truly state that they were totally professional.

Hats off to American Engineering,,,,,
Now lets put it to work in America

[fallujah-nuker]

"If Canada has a problem, just digest Canada..."

I gather that the western provinces, Alberta in particular have about had enough of being the cash cow for socialism in Ontario and Quebec. They have been milked out of a fortune. they are somewhat like Texas, would make a nice addition. Manifest destiny!

[truth_seeker]

"An entry level Fischer-Tropsch plant producing 22,000 barrels a day would cost about $1.5 billion, he said."

To get 5 million barrels per day would be (5,000,000/22,000) x $1.5 billion = $341 billion.

Ramp that up, and we would not be totally free of imported crude, but far on such a path.

I dare say it is highly doable. And the money is simply investment, returned through product sales.

And this is just transport fuels from coal. We also have vast reserves of oil shale (Utah, Colorado and Wyoming).

I've read that Alberta province has GREATER hydrocarbon reserves, than Saudi Arabia (oil shale and tar sands).

And Canada is already producing same, albeit relatively small scale.

Resulting from the 1979 Khomeini oil scare, the US government kicked off building "demonstration" plants for oil from shale.

One such plant by Union Oil was at Parachute Creek, Colorado. The Navy guaranteed to buy the oil produced for about $40 per barrel.

I think this project was eventually mothballed, as we enjoyed years of relatively cheap imported crude.

[Kay]

Head Waters (HW) was just mentioned on Mad Money (Cramer) today. It is an alternative fuel company and converts coal and heavy oil into liquid fuel.

[NormsRevenge]

Ya know, if we could harness the energy of the spin machine that continues to wrk full-time to perpetuate Clinton's legacy, we'd be energy independent in no time.

Thanks for the links.

[backhoe]

[neutronsgalore]

"We could electrify the railway mainlines too, that would reduce our use of diesel fuel."

And we could increase the demand for high tech production in the US by making it high-speed maglev with requirements that it be 100% US-made. We would need to expand our nuclear-power network to provide the necessary electricity of course.

[GotDangGenius]

I'm a legislator in Montana. Governor "Hollywood" as we like to call him-- because he's more interested in getting on TV than he is in actually solving much- but we're still giving him the benefit of the doubt, is a little loony for the most part.
If he's serious, he'll have the backing of the Republican legislators and a vast majority of the people in Montana, but if he's trying to pull another "I am for natural resource use" and then appoint a bunch of whacko greenies from the extreme anti-people "Montana Environmental Information Center" to run anything short of a single compost toilet, you can take the fellow as seriously as you take Cindy Sheehan calling the President the most trustworthy person on the face of the earth.

We'll see. I know Brian personally, and I have been pleasantly surprised at how rational and reasonable he has become once becoming Guv, but I still can't forget his campaign of absolute lying and bull... as I say, we'll see if he's actually serious. If he is, I'll back "Governor Hollywood" 100%.

[Coal-to-Fuels]

I think he may be serious. Domestic FT fuels from coal, coupled with chemicals and power manufacture, (a combination known as polygeneration) are for real. There are a couple of companies pioneering the first wave of projects. Look here: http://www.cleancoalfuels.com/ for instance.

There is no need to use South African technology, when we have better FT technology available right here at home. A company called Rentech, out of Denver Colorado. I should hope that preference for federal and state development dollars will be given to companies that are using home-grown technology.

There are at least 7 domestic CTL projects in various stages of development.

This IS an emerging industry in this country, and it will move faster as the financial community becomes aware of it, the taps to development monies are opened, and more people like that American clean coal fuels group stop talking, and start building.

There are two types of people in this world: Those who do the work, and those who try to take the credit for it. Try to be in the first group, there is less competition there. - Ghandi