The Oil Drum

There has been a fair amount of discussion about the need to form liquid fuels from coal. As the more conventional liquid fuels get more expensive, and less easy to find and produce, an alternative source of fuel has been suggested in the Fischer Tropsch conversion of coal into diesel and gasoline. Can I ask why?

No, not in the sense of do we need the fuel, but rather why go through this long, complex and relatively inefficient process of making the liquid, when, for just the price of grinding it down to micron size, you can mix the coal with water and happily drive your vehicle away. “Preposterous !” I can almost hear the splutters from here, but no, actually it is not, and I thought I would revisit a program that General Electric and others carried out in collaboration with the Department of Energy, between 1982 and 1993, which explains what some of the problems were and how they were resolved.

Watching CSPAN this morning I heard that the EIA believe that all the refineries will be back by Christmas- then hastily corrected to say within the limits of approximation.  Then further corrected to there being about 300,000 bd short at that time (which is the Conoco Philips refinery with the flooded switchgear).  They also expected Gulf production to be back at pre-Katrina levels by March, but it was not clear if this included some new production (say Thunder Horse) to make up the losses.

They also predict a slightly colder winter than NOAA, but clarified this by pointing out that they review heating needs, so that they look at who needs what where, rather than overall temperature changes.  Thus there is a difference in the overall perception because, for example, a higher demand for fuel in the North East may over-ride a reduction in the South.

And to be mildly mischievous a response to a comment.