“I read that a University in Texas has developed a process to turn coal into gas at a cost of about 28 dollars a barrel. assuming the barrel is 55 gallons, that works out close to 50 cents a gallon.”
1. In the oil patch a barrel is 42 gallons.
2. A process was used by Germany in WWII to turn coal into transport fuels. It was subsequently used for plants owned by Sasol in South Africa, and the process is called Fischer-Tropsch. These plants have been onstream since the 1950s.
3. Don’t have any idea what you are writing about, but consider it in light of the facts I pointed out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol
Good point.
Sasol is marketing coal to oil plants in China and Indonesia. They’ve got 40 years experience running these things.
Texas University has Eureka moment - coal to gas
"The Texas researchers, who worked on the project for about 18 months, expect the cost to drop further. "We're improving the cost every day. We started off some time ago at an uneconomical $17,000 a barrel. Today, we're at ... $28.84 a barrel," Rick Billo, UTA's dean of engineering, told an Austin television reporter.
Texas lignite coal sells for $18 a tonne. The coal conversion technology uses one tonne of coal to produce 1.5 barrels of crude oil. One barrel of crude produces 42 U.S. gallons of gasoline. In other words, $18 worth of coal yields 63 gallons of gasoline: 0.28 cents a gallon."