The Oil Drum

This must needs be a short note since old Heading Out is off on his travels again for a few days. But I noted that there was some comment on the imminence or otherwise of CTL plants, and I had mentioned that last week Roger Bezdek had commented that one of the solutions to our coming energy shortage would be that each year would see five 100,000 bd of CTL plants constructed in the United States. Since there is some comment on whether we have any, I draw your attention to a story in the Energybiz insider that comments on the situation.

The company has a project in East Dubuque, Illinois, which it expects to be the first commercial coal-to-liquids plant in the United States by 2010. Even before that, it expects to show the project is doable. A demo plant in Colorado will be producing 10 barrels of coal-based oil a day by the first quarter of 2007, says Ramsbottom.

"The future of coal-to-liquids in the United States is no longer a theoretical, what-if, conversation," says Ramsbottom. "We plan to have a fully commercial, fully operational coal-to-liquids plant up and running by 2010.