Brian Schweitzer replies
Posted by Yankee on October 6, 2005 - 9:19pm
In a DailyKos diary, Jerome a Paris (who focuses on energy issues) took on Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's recent New York Times op-ed about making synthetic fuels from coal using the Fischer-Tropsch process. Jerome had some probing questions for the governor, and today, Schweitzer responded to Jerome in his own diary. He doesn't exactly answer Jerome's actual specific questions, but he seems to be taking people's concerns seriously.
Some of the highlights of Schweitzer's claims include:
- Water needs, traditionally an enormous hurdle, have been all but eliminated with the advent of a process that actually produces water with its excess hydrogen and oxygen.
- Carbon emissions are a particularly important consideration, because unchecked resource exploitation will destabilize our planet. But, the elements not used in hydrocarbon synthesis are sequestered, making the production and combustion of synfuel remarkably carbon-free.
- While solid wastes are a concern, it is certainly better to sequester these toxins, and sell or dispose of them in a controlled manner, than to release them into air and water as is done now.
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
—Richard Feynman
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Watch the history channel some night and catch one of their mind numbingly repetitive documentaries about the Second World War and the end of Hitler's Third Reich. It is always pointed out that with the loss of North Africa and all other access to oil, Germany was reduced to synthetic fuel from coal. It is always pointed out in a somewhat fatalistic tone..."the end was inevitable..."
Turning to coal is not a mark of progress it is a mark of desperation. It is a measure of how poorly we have planned for a transition away from petroleum. It is a band-aide approach to maintaining the status quo when it is no longer sustainable. But right now, because of a lack of planning, we need that bandaid, or rather a whole box of assorted band-aides.
I posted a couple of comments to that effect over there. The problem is that there is a perception that the public just wants to be told that life can go on the same as before, so politicians may be afraid to tell people that things must change.
It would be interesting to know what he privately thinks about all of this - does he really believe it all, or does he have a plan that is more realistic that he isn't willing to articulate in public right now.
????????????
Since we have "250 years worth" of coal (Whatever that figure means..), and we need 85 million barrels of crude we need to scale up coal production about 9 1/2 times. Now if we were to use *only* coal that would mean we'd have 25 years worth of coal. Obviously there is still oil available after peakoil, so this is not a realistic scenario, but it gives you an idea.
But there is another thing: After natural gas peaks, locally or globally, coal production needs to be ramped up as well for the production of electricity.
But no, the coal production only has to go up about half to completely zero out imports of oil and also replace depletion in the US.
About five years of work and we will have rebuilt our industrial base from steel to oil and everything else in between. Five years of making do with old computers and television sets and wearing clothes till they wear out. Five years of living a McDonald's workers existence for middle class people while the McDonald's workers get middle class jobs working in strip mines and steel mills and other good jobs at good wages.
Just think of it as a trip back to 1973 for the lower class, and the middle class, and the rich.
We would have to mine twice as much coal to replace oil imports. Also, since coal is CH and oil is CH2 you get a lot of byproduct CO from the H2 production, so you burn that in gas turbines (after you clean it, just like you clean H2S out of gas) and that is what we will use to replace gas production as it declines.
I should have remembered that.
I don't know the EROI but I can guesstimate a greenhouse intensity figure. Choren Industries say their SunFuel is 10% as greenhouse intensive as petroleum diesel. Princeton University give a range of figures for FT diesel from coal with the middle value about 150% of petrodiesel. If my arithmetic is correct that means FT diesel from coal is about 15 times more net GHG intensive than from biomass, assuming no CO2 capture. I think a carbon tax would be good insurance to ensure coal-to-liquids producers stayed 'clean'.
greatly lowers the yield and any added hydrogen must come from somewhere. Unless he is considering hydrogen rich natural gas, of which there is already a shortage, this must come from water as in the original Fischer-Tropsch process.
Has anyone any idea what this process is that hydrogenates coal and generates not uses water?
A coal-to-liquids plant which uses no water but has a large waste stream of boron-11 would cause as many problems as it solved (as remarkable as it might be). ;-)
Danced? Misrepresented is more like it. Coal doesn't have much hydrogen in it. The hydrogen has to come from somewhere and water's the usual suspect. It's not hard to produce water from "excess hydrogen and oxygen." Light a match. It IS hard to understand where the source of the excess. This claim needs a lot of attention.
If he's claiming that the water is generated when the fuel is finally burned then I'd say that's gross misrepresentation. F-T still requires water in situ to make the fuel and the water released is far away and unrecoverable.
The other possibility, even more disturbing, is that the "excess" hydrogen comes from natural gas. I don't think there are any other candidates.
1. Water: Depending of the C:H ratio of coal, the F-T process may be net consumer or a net producer of water. If it has hardly any hydrogen (Antracite coal), the overall equation is:
C + H2O --> -(-CH2-)- + CO2
Here, -(-CH2-)- is the "polymethylene" F-T diesel fuel (n-paraffins). On the other extreme if you have a hydrocarbon feedstock with a low C:H ratio, F-T will be a net water producer. Consider the methane case:
CH4 + 1/2 O2 --> -(-CH2-)- + H2O
Water by itself is not the issue. It's the expense of vaporizing it, which is what make the coal based F-T inherently less efficient than methane (nat'l gas) versions-- which brings us to the next major point.
2. Thermal efficiency: The efficiency of F-T process (Btu out / Btu in) is in the 60-66% range. It's just thermodynamics. We can look at it as the price we pay for converting a solid (or gas) fuel into a more transportable liquid fuel. One could even make the case that this will pay for itself (e.g. cost of transporting the coal to power plants, etc.).
Despite all its shortcomings, F-T is the only synthetic fuel technology practiced today (four plants in the world, three making fuels). If the peak in crude oil is in five years or less, there is no time for any R&D. There is only time to build F-T plants. Although I am the last person to support a Republican governor, in this case he is right!