Posted on 11/03/2005 6:32:41 PM PST by Brian328i
TULSA, Okla. -- Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer visited a demonstration plant that converts natural gas into synthetic diesel fuel and said the process could help wean the country off foreign oil.
This technology could also be used to make diesel fuel from coal, which is in abundance in Montana.
"The country has two options for energy until we build a bridge to a hydrogen economy," Schweitzer said in a visit Wednesday to the Syntroleum Corp. plant. "We can either continue to give money to dictators who want to destroy our way of life, or we can provide tens of thousands of jobs in America's heartland."
Montana contains about 120 billion tons of easily recoverable coal, Schweitzer said.
Syntroleum President and Chief Executive Officer Jack Holmes said his company's process could diversify the country's fuel sources.
"The biggest cost of getting coal is physically transporting it," Holmes said. "Governor Schweitzer realizes we can build our plants at the mine mouths and provide good jobs for Montana citizens. We can make the finished product right there and supply the local demand. It's a win-win for everybody."
Schweitzer and Holmes said the synthetic diesel is affordable at current prices, costing about $35 to $40 a barrel, well below Wednesday's New York Mercantile Exchange price of $59.70 for a barrel of crude oil, but significantly higher than the product has netted for much of the past 20 years.
Over the past two years, the company has moved its processes from research and development to implementation. Syntroleum operates a 70 barrel-per-day demonstration plant, but no commercially viable plants are operational.
Pardon me, but what advantage is there in consuming more natural gas, which is supposedly in short supply this winter, and converting it to diesel?
Alot of natural gas is already burned off as it is. Schweitzer has been lobbying for the coal to diesel method instead of NG.
Its coal to diesel, I believe. Gas to diesel would be crazy.
I could not have said it better myself. Drilling in ANWR, coal, ethanol, bio diesel, whatever it takes.
crazy you say
A Middle Eastern country in the heart of the world’s largest oil-producing region is embarking on what may be one of the largest alternative fuel experiments in history.
The Wall Street Journal reported Feb. 15 that Qatar – a tiny nation on a peninsula between Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf – is building a massive plant to turn the country’s natural gas into diesel fuel.
The process Qatar plans to use is not new. It is the same process used by South Africa and World War II-era Germany to turn coal into diesel. During the Apartheid era, many oil-producing countries would not do business with South Africa, and it depended on gasified coal for much of its diesel fuel needs.
John Rich Jr., president of Pennsylvania company WMPI, recently described the process to Land Line: Carbon-based substances are passed through an entrained flow gasifier to produce a synthesis gas. That synthesis gas then goes through a second process that liquefies it. The final product is a highly refined diesel that will run in existing diesel engines.
While Rich’s company uses the process to create diesel from coal waste, the Qatar plant would use it to convert natural gas into a liquid diesel fuel. Like’s Rich’s facilities, the Qatar process – called gas-to-liquid, or GTL – will produce a diesel that is free of many of the pollutants normally found in diesel fuel.
The Qatar project has caught the attention of some of the world’s oil giants, including ChevronTexaco, Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Exxon Mobil. The Journal reported that Exxon Mobil expects to spend between $15 billion and $17 billion to build facilities in the industrial park where Qatar plans to liquefy natural gas. A large part of that – $7 billion – will go to a gas-to-liquid plant, which The Journal said was the largest single investment in the history of the company.
Qatar has 14 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves.
The process was developed by the Germans in WWII. It is expensive to do, but if you can produce diesel for $40 per 55 gallon barrel, then what are we waiting for?
A "barrel" of petroleum is only 42 gallons.
(Barrels (US) to Gallons (US) conversion calculator)
He's been pushing this position for several months, which I agree is good.
I don't think we need any federal bucks going into it, though. Record oil industry profits mean they have plenty of cash to take advantage of the research that's already been done. If his figures are right, they'd be making big bucks off the investment in a couple of years. They don't need our help to do that.
We need fewer people sucking away at our scarce resources. Enforcing the deportation laws would help, if anyone is interested.
I've also read where Schweitzer and North Dakota Governor John Hoeven (Republican), have been actively using their Governorships to work together to find alternative energy solutions. Hoeven has been pushing ethanol-based fuel for automobiles, and North Dakota has plans to build 2 ethanol fuel generating plants in the state.
Still a buck a gallon...very expensive when the tech was invented (by the nazi war machine)...but VERY cheap for today...
Not doing this borders on criminality or at the very least colusion with those who would strangle our economy...a buck a gallon diesle can move a lot of products and services cheaper and lighten the burden on OUR wallets a bit too......
Let the bottom fall out from under Oil and let the arabs eat sand...
Plus building those plants would be good paying *Union* jobs...
(just had to throw the last in as a construction Electrician...*Grin*)
True, but how many gallons of diesel do you get from a barrel of crude oil?
"...record oil profits mean they have plenty of cash..."
Yes, I hope they know that they're really in the fuel business, not the oil busieness.
Otherwise they will make the same mistake the railroads did when they ignored the fact that they were in the transportation business and let the airlines be developed by someone else.
ethanol SUCKS for most cars allready on the road........I wouldnt burn it in any vehicle not specificly designed for it...
Like my 73' Pontiac lemans.
Of course. Ethanol is compatible with cars, pickup trucks, RV's, and motorcycles made within the last 15 years.
Heh..and those same vehicles wont run after an EMF pulse...
Not that I'm that paranoid...but it is nice knowing I can "get out of dodge" before the fallout hits....Heh heh
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