I worked for a company that poured untold amounts of investor money into all of those. The only time synthetic oil worked was in Nazi Germany and South Africa because of their vast deposits of coal. But almost none of what you listed (and I could add a lot to that list panned out). Instead, we now have the GD goobermint full of really stupid people cramming "climate change" down our throats and leading them to ban NATURAL GAS. I got into the power industry when we were cleaning up real pollutants, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulates. We finished that so now they chase fairy tale "pollutants" like inert CO2.
Our society worked really well up until 30 years ago. Now the nonstop assault on so many fronts simultaneously makes it almost impossible to fight back. The future is really bleak on so many fronts (not the least of which is our abysmal ability to turn out students who can read, write, do math, and think critically).
It was a phase. A national and global mania.
I was working wells at Rifle, Colorado and drove the cutoff from there to Colbran across Parachute before the invasion. One day bare badlands and the next trip dozers leveling the area for a town. Just as soon as it started it ended.
Saw the same thing with Synfuels at the bureau of mines lab south of Pittsburgh. One day a flurry of activity and frame work for the chemistry set writ large. Beams, cranes and vessels everywhere. Then I visited the place in like ‘92 or ‘93 to get coal bed methane data and the whole affair of Synfuels was a bare foundation.
We too have plenty of coal for Snyfuels but it also produces a lot of nasty stuff and is very hard to do.
It was really a panic borne of irrational fears and encouraged by gooberment grants and credits. Show a politician a problem and eventually he will throw enough money at it to choke a horse guided by K street buddies and know nothings in it for a buck. The pattern never changes.
I and a team went looking for a trillion cubic feet of coal bed methane. We found it, we could get the minerals position. I was selected to give the presentation to the execs. I got up, stated our mission and said we found it, it can be done but the recommendation is short, don’t do it. I said we had a very interesting hunt and learned a lot of things but unless you want to dig into this it is academic. Without tax credits this is a losing proposition. They wanted to hear the whole story so I made the full presentation. When finished the boss looked at me, smiled and said, I agree but I also agree it is a fun story.
Only a couple of places made money on CBM. They were really not CBM but interbedded coal in sandstone reservoirs that got the tax treatment anyway. Unique locations, made a ton of money.
What about arsenic, mercury and such from flue gas?
Of course now they are not only after CO2 they are after Nitrogen. I wonder how much nitrogen, in tons, falls to earth per inch of rain per square mile? Years ago an acquaintance working for one of the cooker companies did the calcs for man made CO2 vs natural. At that time it was a volume equivalent to the end of the tail of an elephant with the rest, naturally released, being the rest of the elephant.
Do you also remember the subsea collection domes Arco built for Santa Barbara to capture natural seeps as compensation for developing area fields. What a fiasco. Wonder what ever happened to those?
There ain’t no place worth living you can hide in.