Process to convert coal to gasoline for less than 28 cents a gallon?

[2QUIK6]

Anyone else hear about this discovery here at The University of Texas at Arlington, my alma mater! My neighbor just told me about it. He had heard a brief story on the local news about it about 2 weeks ago then never heard another peep.
Here's the link to the story..but essentially scientists at UTA discovered a way to make gasoline from coal for a cost of about 28 cents per gallon!! With no emissions....Germans did this in WWII but was very cost prohibitive and created a bunch of harmful emissions in the process.
Texas university has eureka moment for coal-to-gas | Global Petroleum Club

 

[Pronto]

Interesting.

 

[ijames]

Sure wish there were more details. That first step of converting carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide is a little off-putting, energetics wise, and the casual "renewable hydrogen source" is too. Hydrogen is expensive to come by at this scale, no matter what the source. I'll keep an eye out in the chemical literature and if I find any more details I'll post them up.

 

[forcedfedv6]

Anyone else hear about this discovery here at The University of Texas at Arlington, my alma mater! My neighbor just told me about it. He had heard a brief story on the local news about it about 2 weeks ago then never heard another peep.
Here's the link to the story..but essentially scientists at UTA discovered a way to make gasoline from coal for a cost of about 28 cents per gallon!! With no emissions....Germans did this in WWII but was very cost prohibitive and created a bunch of harmful emissions in the process.
Texas university has eureka moment for coal-to-gas | Global Petroleum Club

The big gasoline companies and those with invested money in them from capitol hill will shut it down before it even has wings to fly.

 

[2QUIK6]

The big gasoline companies and those with invested money in them from capitol hill will shut it down before it even has wings to fly.

Yeah, my buddy here at work said that scientist is probably already chopped up in a knap sack somewhere is why nothing else has been said.
Just found it interesting that a discovery with that kind of potential has had no more air time being local here.

 

[Little6pack]

Obumulas, Al GORELIONA (the don of climate change) & his radical kooks don't want to hear this..

Thus 1 call from RAMMY EMANUALLA to the news outlets puts the kobosh on the story's

 

[ijames]

Hmm, some quick Googling turns up a round of announcements almost word-for-word the same as the article the OP linked to, back in Feb 2009, then another batch in Jun 2009, and now the latest crop over the last few weeks. Wonder if that coincides with the awarding and/or renewal of their grant support? Seems they have been "almost ready to license" for a year now.

 

[alwayscode390]

Interesting ... I bet it goes in the same vault as the 65mpg carb. made decades ago ---

 

[Rodimus_Prime]

oh good maybe we can stop caring about the middle east now

 

[2QUIK6]

Hmm, some quick Googling turns up a round of announcements almost word-for-word the same as the article the OP linked to, back in Feb 2009, then another batch in Jun 2009, and now the latest crop over the last few weeks. Wonder if that coincides with the awarding and/or renewal of their grant support? Seems they have been "almost ready to license" for a year now.

I beleive the significance of the latest round is the lower cost of producing it, every year it seems that a new process is found to reduce the cost a little more than the last guy did, or reduce the emissions in the process.
But, it could be new hype on an old process, or fiction altogether, or the oil gustoppo already silenced the process in the name of big $$..don't know, but like to know where it leads to or what has happened since. ....and why would the govt want such high mpg standards for new cars as they get tons more $$ for the gas guzzlers and for every gallon they gulp..and if we have 28 cents a gallon gas, they could up the gas tax by $2.50!! So the end benefit to us would be 0.

 

[Pronto]

In the news section of that website there is some nice articles on getting natural gas out of shale coal. The US has massive deposits of shale coal. Switching diesle electric generators natural gas from those deposits would be a great saving and cut some of our reliance on middle east oil.

 

[JOHNDEEREGN]

:biggrin:

Yeah, my buddy here at work said that scientist is probably already chopped up in a knap sack somewhere is why nothing else has been said.

Off to get a towel to wipe the Bud Light off my laptop screen:biggrin::biggrin:

Sad but true....

 

[John Larkin]

Germans made gasoline from coal in WWII. It is not a new technology but maybe now improved. But it would take gobs and gobs of coal to make enough gas for the US to live on.

I still believe that the natural gas infrastructure we already have in almost every home and business is the natural progression toward the future. There is plenty of natural gas and it is half the cost of gasoline. Then we can move toward fuel cell technology since folks will become accustomed to vapor fuel rather than liquid fuel.

 

[Eticket]

"Texas lignite coal sells for $18 a tonne. The coal conversion technology uses one tonne of coal to produce 1.5 barrels of crude oil. One barrel of crude produces 42 U.S. gallons of gasoline. In other words, $18 worth of coal yields 63 gallons of gasoline: 0.28 cents a gallon."

Sorry to burst your bubble Rob. 1 barrel of crude is not 42 gallons of gasoline. 1 barrel of crude is 42 gallons of crude. I pretty much stopped reading the article from there.

How much gasoline you get out of a barrel is depending on the quality of this syncrude they are talking about and the type of refinery they run it through in the end.

They have probably reduced the cost of creating the syncrude which is good and fine, but the yield of that crude to gasoline is probably very slim to none. It is why no one has been able to move forward on coal to liquids fuels. It mostly turned into a very bad diesel that doesn't meet on-road specs today.

 

[2QUIK6]

Yes, a barrel of crude is 42 gallons, but that creates more than 42 gallons of end product, whether it be gas, lubricants, gases, etc, so I didn't give it much thought since other chemicals are added to the crude in the process.
No bubble bursted here, the govt would tax it to current price levels if it were true anyway Was just curious if any one else had heard of this "new process" being discovered or if it was just local...yes, as stated in the OP its not new technology that the Germans did it in WW2 but with creation of harmful emissions.

 

[BLACK6PACK]

yeah, I think the standard is 19-20 gallons of gas per barrel, but a lot of the other 22 gallons is used for other products. So double it to $.36 and it's still cheap.

 

[gsgns4me]

It's has been a much talked about topic for quite some time where I live.

Agency issues permit for coal-to-gas plant

Coal-to-liquids touted as way to U.S. energy independence

 

[charlief1]

This is simular to converting sour gas to usable gas. Texas has a lot of natural gas pockets that are poisonous and can't be refined because of it. The US has a tremendous amount of natural gas (a large portion in Washington) that is absolutly useless.