[RayChuang88]

True, but converting the coal to a gaseous form is complex and pretty energy intensive. Sure, the Germans did it during World War II, but it was very costly to set up those special refineries to make the aviation-grade petrol from coal. So much so that when the Americans studied the plans for the German refineries, they rejected the idea because the cost to make one gallon of gasoline from coal was WAY higher than refining it from crude oil.

[thackney]

Different topic, but GTL isn’t cheap either.

Shell, who has a couple commercial plants outside the US evaluated and decided it could not compete in the US.

Sasol, who does both GTL and CTL, claims they may be able to make it work economically in the US is still evaluating it.