Eco-weenies heads are going to EXPLODE!.........
Posted on 08/27/2013 10:30:44 AM PDT by topher
A Texas company says that it has developed a cheaper and cleaner way to convert natural gas into gasoline and other liquid fuels, making it economical to tap natural-gas reserves that in the past have been too small or remote to develop.
The company behind the technology, Dallas-based Synfuels International, says that the process uses fewer steps and is far more efficient than more established techniques based on the Fischer-Tropsch process. This process converts natural gas into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide; a catalyst then causes the carbon and hydrogen to reconnect in new compounds, such as alcohols and fuels. Nazi Germany used the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal and coal-bed methane into diesel during World War II.
A Synfuels gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery goes through several steps to convert natural gas into gasoline but claims to do so with better overall efficiency. First, natural gas is broken down, or “cracked,” under high temperatures into acetylene, a simpler hydrocarbon. A separate liquid-phase step involving a proprietary catalyst then converts 98 percent of the acetylene into ethylene, a more complex hydrocarbon. This ethylene can then easily be converted into a number of fuel products, including high-octane gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. And the end product is free of sulfur.
“We’re able to produce a barrel of gasoline for much cheaper than Fischer-Tropsch can,” says Kenneth Hall, coinventor of the process and former head of Texas A&M University’s department of chemical engineering. Hall says that a Fischer-Tropsch plant is lucky to produce a barrel of gasoline for $35 but that a much smaller Synfuels refinery could produce the same barrel for $25. Under current fuel prices, such a plant could pay for itself in as little as four years, the company says.
(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...
The other process was developed by a company in Texas.
Supposedly the cost to make a barrel of gasoline was $25 for the Texas process. That would not include the cost of the natural gas, but in some oil producing fields, the "natural gas" is discarded as it is not feasible to build pipelines.
We may actually use Unicorn Farts!...............
I’m constantly amazed by the problems american can solve and the improvements and advances we can seemingly make out of the blue.
The economy is in a race. On one hand, we have the dead hand of Government and the Fed, taking our increased productivity through inflation, taxes and destructive debt for spending
On the other hand, we have constant technological and productivity gains in the wider economy, which keep our standing of living afloat in the face of theft from the other side.
Eco-weenies heads are going to EXPLODE!.........
Ping
Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished..... 
If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST jut FReepmail me..... This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....
If the process was as economic as they claimed, in the past 5 years they would have built more than the original pilot plant. They have not.
http://www.synfuels.com/Plant.html
I must admit I’ve never heard the term “a barrel of gasoline” before.
This is the one I told you about. Did you visit or research it?
Works out to $0.60 for the catalyst process, per gallon.
Figure a similar amount for the raw gas.
Net cost around $1.20 per gallon.
I’d say this is economical, if you belive that oil itself does not suddenly become cheap or natural gas become expensive.
In oilman terms, a barrel is 42 gallons.
(as opposed to the classic 55 gallon drum used for chemicals)
In most of the US petroleum industry, all the refined products are measured in barrels. It is only pricing that typical goes to the gallon for gasoline.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_w.htm
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_wprodrb_dcu_nus_w.htm
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_stoc_wstk_dcu_nus_w.htm
They haven’t sold a license yet. But they do sell tickets to seminars.
Is that why 5 years later, only the original pilot plant is in service and no production facilities?
A San Francisco firm apparently has a startup initiated for the UC Santa Barbara process (there was a March article this year [2013] about that startup].
With all the activity with Natural Gas, seems like someone might pick up on this -- if it is feasible.
Hmmmmm....
Could be a “cold fusion” hoax, it could be government or industry roadblocks.
I’d like to see this thing make some gasoline.
Shell and Sasol have commercial production facilities converting Natural Gas to liquid Fuels, typically Kerosene, or feedstocks to diesel and gasoline blending. The plants have cost billions of dollars but have proven economic in locations where the Natural Gas is mostly converted to LNG to shipping overseas.
Both Shell and Sasol have discussed plans and funding for a US plant, but the economics are tougher, along with our cost of regulations.
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