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| SYNTHETIC FUEL [message #102330] |
Sat, 09 October 2010 10:20  |
Michael Bozardt
Messages: 367
Registered: January 2007
Location: College Station, Texas
Karma:
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The following is quoted from an article by Dr Peter W. Becker. The article was found under Synthetic Fuels on the internet. The USA has a lot of coal, now mainly used to power electric plants I think. Beats the heck out of ethanol(my opinion). Synthetic fuel can be made from coal, natural gas, oil shale and biomass.....Michael at GEMRECS
"The Role of Synthetic Fuel
In World War II Germany
implications for today?
Dr. Peter W. Becker
The United States is faced with an acute energy problem. Our dependence on imported petroleum, which accounts for half of the country’s consumption, has caused rising balance of payments deficits that weaken the dollar and contribute to inflation. More worrisome in the long run for the future of this country is the realization that eventually most oil deposits, both foreign and domestic, will be depleted. This grim specter is accompanied by a lack of control over foreign supplies, leaving us dependent on the goodwill and mercy of the oil-producing states.
A third formula, the Fischer-Tropsch process, was, at that time, still in the research and testing stage. Under this system, coal is compressed into gas which is mixed with hydrogen. By placing this mixture in contact ovens and adding certain catalysts, oil molecules are formed. Further treatment of this primary substance generates fuel, chiefly diesel oil.
Coking and distillation extracted oils and tars from coal, and additional cracking refined them into gasoline. The Fischer-Tropsch process and a fourth method, the hydrogenation process, changed coal directly into gasoline. As coal is a hydrocarbon containing little hydrogen and gasoline is a hydrocarbon with a high hydrogen content, the problem consisted of attaching hydrogen molecules to coal, thereby liquefying it. This was the basis of the hydrogenation process, which required high temperatures and high pressures. By 1933, this method had been thoroughly tested and was ready for large-scale practical application. The advantage of the hydrogenation method was that as primary material it could use the tars from the distillation of both lignite and bituminous coal (although the distillation of the latter was not possible on a large scale until 1943) as well as lignite and bituminous coal directly.11"
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