Oil From Coal

The Chinese are no wimps when it comes to making the right decisions ...

A Chinese energy company is poised to open a chemical plant to make liquid fuels for cars and aircraft from coal, a move that has alarmed environmental campaigners who say it will increase carbon emissions and worsen global warming.

The plant, in Inner Mongolia, will use technology developed by Germany during the second world war to convert coal directly into synthetic diesel, dubbed "Nazi fuel". China says the process will help break its booming economy's reliance on foreign oil, and that it will build more such plants.

The US and India are also investing heavily in the technology, which is being heavily promoted by coal companies across the world as a cost-effective solution to soaring oil prices and concerns about energy security.

The Chinese facility, operated by Shenhua Corporation, will be the first of its type in the world. Shenhua would not say when it expects the plant to open, but industry experts said it would be within weeks. Last month, company officials said construction work was 99.5% complete.

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Analysts say the fuel could be economic if oil prices stay consistently above US$25-40 a barrel. Oil currently costs double that, and briefly touched $100 a barrel last month.

A study last year by the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: "Production of liquid fuels from coal is practically the most feasible route to cope with the dilemma in oil supply."

Think about the part of the article outlined in red above, how does $40 equivalent seem to you when the costs of a barrel of oil on today's market is $100+. If the US politicians were really interested in energy independence instead of giving lip service to the words, the US would be doing what the Chinese are doing. Instead, Pres Clinton made a fake monument of the largest US deposit of low sulphur coal, you might ask why did he do that? Well it was to benefit his Indonesian buddy, look it up if you want to know more.

Seriously, we are driving up food prices to produce ethanol which causes as much as twice the CO2 as gasoline, does that sound like a winner? Why are we not using coal synfuel to power cars and nuclear to power our electrical generation? Both would reduce CO2 production. Going to have to leave that part up to the reader to decide. Why are the enviro-whack-nuts alarmed, but unwilling to advance the cause of nuclear power?

Read about coal liquefaction and gasification, two of the ways coal changes characteristic. Yes, it can be done cleanly, especially if nuclear power is used for the energy to drive the conversion processes. Coal conversion has been useful for many countries, in WWII the Germans and the Japanese ran their war machines on coal.