Synthetic gas or carbon neutral gas what’s coming down the road ?

Coal liquefication has been around since the early 1900s. The most ambitious effort was in Nazi Germany during World War II. Synthetic gas accounted for most of the German aviation gasoline and up to half of the regular petrol.

The process has been improved upon obviously. To the point where South Africa has become dependent when oil prices are up.

Every day 120 000 metric tons of coal are transported to a plant at Secunda, near Johannesburg, where they are converted into 150 000 barrels of oil a day.
The plant belongs to one of South Africa's success stories, Sasol, the parastatal company that invented and perfected the technology for making petrol and diesel from coal.
Sasol's main plant in the province of Mpumalanga - the only commercial coal-to-liquid plant in the world - produces about 150 000 barrels of synthetic fuel a day and meets about 28% of South Africa's annual fuel needs.
Coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology makes economic sense only in a world of high oil prices: synthetic fuels become economically viable when oil prices reach $50 a barrel. As a result, Sasol has come of age. Until 2003, oil prices averaged $25 a barrel, making $45-a-barrel liquid coal economically prohibitive, but today oil prices hover at $70-a barrel, so the demand for CTL technology is booming.


Read more: www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com...

^^^^^^ The price for crude per barrel today is $65.70. From my research the five-year low was in 2016 and averaged $43 a barrel. Which would still make synthetic fuel competitive and resistant two big oil trying to crash the prices.

$45 a barrel for oil just sounds like a win to me.

Now there’s a version for carbon neutral gasoline and diesel. It’s a little pricey($3.80 Per gallon gas) at the moment but hopefully breakthroughs are yet to be had. The A2F process Captures CO2 from the air for direct conversion into petroleum products. The green crowd should be ecstatic with this process and funding should be pouring in.

Over the last few years, we have been working on a concept we call “Air to Fuels”, or A2F for short. A2F uses our direct air capture technology to extract and purify CO2 from the air, and employs electrolysis to produce hydrogen from water using renewable electricity. The CO2 and hydrogen are then combined in a process called “thermo-catalysis”, where they are directly synthesized into liquid fuels such as gasoline and diesel (and in the future, jet fuel also). A2F is a potentially game-changing technology, which if successfully scaled up, will allow us to harness cheap intermittent renewable electricity to drive synthesis of liquid fuels that are compatible with modern infrastructure and engines. This offers an alternative to biofuels and a complement to electric vehicles in the effort to displace fossil fuels from transportation.

carbonengineering.com...

The coal liquefication process especially on a large scale. Can be made cheaper than gasoline now at current levels.

The air to fuel process is more expensive. While it doesn’t help clean up the environment it could cut automobile emissions to virtually zero.

Cheaper Oil from coal and gasoline from the air. I’m good with both processes.

But if someone comes up with a cow methane to hamburger process. That’s where I draw the line. Lol

Screw coal...burn dandelions instead.

www.google.com... /

a reply to: Fallingdown

It's a great process that can be used as a buffer against inflation. I was at sasol in 1988, it looks like they still have my lethal perimeter installed (at least from the air/google Earth), but I expect it has been upgraded since then, at least the detection and access management.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: Fallingdown

There is a lot work being done with genetically altered algae to produce fuel.

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle
a reply to: Fallingdown

It's a great process that can be used as a buffer against inflation

Nothing prevents inflation because the cartels and monopolies have no competition.

We need to work on a device to trap all farts and convert them to fuel. You just wear it in your buttcrack until it's full and take it in and sell them your farts.

a reply to: Fallingdown

Sorry, but none of that is the future. The future is electric and Uber and Lyft. GenZ is long delaying even getting drivers licenses and use Uber/Lyft ride sharing, which, after Trump, will probably go to all electric fleets in the cities.

Another development is that Congress, both parties, are looking at seriously raising the Federal Gasoline tax and both parties are embracing carbon taxing. These efforts will make electric the fuel of the future.

PS,
Dont buy stock in McDonalds.........after Trump they will end beef production with high taxes and farming as well. Dairy farming is already seriously threatened. Obesity via overeating will be a thing of the past.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

I look at it a couple different ways. If coal liquefication is successful on a large scale.it could knock big oil down a few notches.

If the A2F process becomes viable ($3.90 average per gallon for now) it could help tone down the green crew and there noise for all electric cars .

I noticed a few people brought up Bio fuels.

Far as I know it doesn’t cancel carbon omissions . Most of them are farther away from keeping up production demand .



Cheap gas from coal cleaner air from A2F.

Pretty much I feel the same way as I did in my OP .

a reply to: dfnj2015

A friend of mine did some engineering for a company that wanted to make algae fuel in south florida.

The EPA effectively made it impossible for them to open up shop in the USA. They just cancelled the project, wasn't worth the effort.

a reply to: TonyS

Converting every car to electric in the US. Is at least one decade away. Car manufactures will have to need to renovate all manufacturing facilities. . There are 250 million registered vehicles .

They don’t even know if he electrical grid will be able to support it. Not to mention most people couldn’t afford electric cars even with subsidies. Unless they have used electric car Lots. Lol

a reply to: Fallingdown

www.zerohedge.com...

According to the study directed by Christoph Buchal of the University of Cologne, published by the Ifo Institute in Munich last week, electric vehicles have "significantly higher CO2 emissions than diesel cars." That is due to the significant amount of energy used in the mining and processing of lithium, cobalt, and manganese, which are critical raw materials for the production of electric car batteries.



A battery pack for a Tesla Model 3 pollutes the climate with 11 to 15 tonnes of CO2. Each battery pack has a lifespan of approximately ten years and total mileage of 94,000, would mean 73 to 98 grams of CO2 per kilometer (116 to 156 grams of CO2 per mile), Buchal said. Add to this the CO2 emissions of the electricity from powerplants that power such vehicles, and the actual Tesla emissions could be between 156 to 180 grams of CO2 per kilometer (249 and 289 grams of CO2 per mile).

I read a little about the coal gas before, they used coal gas to heat homes around here long ago. I learned of this while investigating the gas piping and vents that still are in my daughters hundred year old house. Evidently they had underground piping to houses in the mid nineteen hundreds here. Only the houses that the mine execs owned had this fuel, it was expensive compared to coal. Some of the more predominant people also had access to it. There was no natural gas here back then. This was a booming mining area back then. I do not know if they were producing the coal gas here or whether they were hauling it in by tankers, I only know they had it and were using it in the local towns.

I wonder if the process they used back then was similar to what they are doing in Africa now?

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Screw coal...burn dandelions instead.

www.google.com... /

They already have synthetic fuel. It is called Biofuel

It is not working at all because it is taking farm land space. So no, synthetic fuel will not work.

theconversation.com...

No fuel will replace gasoline. The only way is if oil companies to convert to something else other than mining for more oil. We all going to have to trading in our oiled cars sooner or later.

Are you ready for some sleep educing dump of information that I have gleaned in my research on the topic of coal liquifaction?

Well... here it comes anyway

The method the Germans used in WW2 was the Fischer-Tropsch process
( en.wikipedia.org... )
To feed this process you need carbon-monoxide, hydrogen, and some form of biomass (in most cases coal)
The hydrogen was typically provided via steam reforming of methane ( or other natural gases)
( en.wikipedia.org... ) in a method somewhat similar to that needed for the Haber-Bosch process used in making fertilizers.

Currently the process is in practice about 60% efficient, and produces a diesel like synthetic fuel and a synthetic lubricant.

Now to walk through the process.

CH4 + H2O ⇌ CO + 3 H2

So you introduce Methane and Water to an enclosed area at high temperatures (typically 700-1100 C) using nickle as a catalyst. What this does is allows the Carbon in the methane to disassociate with the hydrogen, and associate with the oxygen from the water, resulting in Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen.

This process is continued in a further reaction with more water
( en.wikipedia.org... )

CO + H2O ⇌ CO2 + H2

This continued process disassociates the Oxygen from the Carbon in Carbon Monoxide to produce Carbon dioxide and hydrogen. This process must be done in a very high pressure vessel with a catalyst of iron as otherwise the reaction will not take place and the carbon monoxide and water will not associate with one another close enough for the catalyst to act.

This is much like the process used in Coal Gasification that was mentioned earlier in this topic ( en.wikipedia.org... )

these are both parts that make up the Bergius process.
( en.wikipedia.org... )

By doing the Bergius process you get an output of three different types of petroleum products. A heavy and mid weight oil, and gasoline. The heavy and mid weight oil can be further refined into other products. The drawback of this process however is the need for very clean, ash free, coal.

I have been tinkering with this process myself for a couple years in my free time (on a theoretical level, not practical level) and have been working on using biomass specifically for the putting it into the Bergius process, as in the formation stages of charcoal allows for the disassociation of ash from the process while also creating the syngas needed for further refining ( see wood gas en.wikipedia.org... ). That way you could have a theoretically carbon neutral, industrial scale production of gasoline.

A simplification of my thoughts on the process would be as follows

Willows burned in an oxygen scarce environment (much like colliers used to) with a vent for syphoning off the syngas produced.

Use of the syngas for production of hydrogen.

Use of the hydrogen for hydrogenation of the charcoal.

Use the Bergius process for the production of the petroleum products.

Now mind you this is a vast simplification of the process, and this does require catalysts, and some of them are rather rare catalysts for the best output. However the most commonly used catalysts contain iron and nickle which are not that short in supply, however to really push up the efficiency you need to use something like cobalt which can be a real no-no.