Turn coal into oil

[matrixscarface]

i have found out that they have been able to turn coal into oil... does anyone know how i could personally do this?

[zadojla]

I found this thread on Google, which contains several links to other sources of information. Some of them seem to have an agenda, though. At the bottom of the page, the author lists the Google search terms he used to find the info.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=324794

[UncleAl]

WWII Germany converted lignite (brown coal) to oil. South Africa with its SASOL process does much the same. Mobil ZSM-5 catalyst will turn methanol into high aromatics gasoline and by extension any source of carbon plus heat and steam. Bottom line: There is no economic replacement for petroleum as chemicals raw material.

 

Fat is so cheap that it makes biodiesel only costing two or three times as much as the real thing. If there were any demand for fat as fuel the price would skyrocket, as waste fat is well used as it is. Photosynthesis is very optimistically equivalent to producing 15 bbl/day-mile^2 of diesel fuel and ignoring all energy inputs. It requires 131,000 British thermal units (Btus) to produce one gallon of ethanol, which yields 77,000 Btus of fuel energy. That's a 70% net energy loss.

[Biochemist]

It requires 131,000 British thermal units (Btus) to produce one gallon of ethanol, which yields 77,000 Btus of fuel energy. That's a 70% net energy loss.

UA- I have heard this stat before, and I am wondering if you could identify where the energy is (mainly) consumed in production. Is it distillation?

 

....Or does it include the usually-wasted solar energy input to photosynthesis?

[Qfwfq]

....Or does it include the usually-wasted solar energy input to photosynthesis?

That's what I thought too. It would be more appropriate to talk of conversion efficiency.

 

It's easy to produce methane too, which gives less CO2 than ethanol.

[Fishteacher73]

Not that I am a spokesman for the petrolium industry, but one must realize that many things are made from that single barrel of oil. Once can crack the molecules to give various grades/types of petro-fuels as well as the many other uses of the byproducts such as plastics, etc.

 

I am not sure of the specific enegry costs of and returns on each of these, but it must at least make up a bit more thnt just examining only diesel fuel produced from a barrel of crude oil.

 

Humans have ALWAYS had VERY ineffecient fuels. Even our harnessing of nuclear power has a pretty low yield of the actual energy stored in atoms.

[Biochemist]

Humans have ALWAYS had VERY ineffecient fuels. Even our harnessing of nuclear power has a pretty low yield of the actual energy stored in atoms.

True. I was just hoping that someone could confirm that reference on inefficiency of alcohol production. My ulterior motive is mainly political. Our midwest farmers are madly producing ethanol as a gasoline additive, because they are subsidized by the federal government. If they are consuming more fuel than they produce in doing so, it would ne nice to advertize that we are spending federal tax subsidies to throw away energy.

 

Not that I think the federal government is rational. It just would be nice to know the answer.

[Qfwfq]

If they are consuming more fuel than they produce in doing so, it would ne nice to advertize that we are spending federal tax subsidies to throw away energy.

I really don't think so, Brazil has been producing ethanol from otherwise wasted crop bi-products for decades, to save energy. Many cars produced in Brazil have engines designed for ethanol so they don't run on an 80-20 mix, just pure alcohol.

[UncleAl]

Producing fuels from photosynthesis is insane - unless you can violate the laws of thermodynamics at will on a huge scale. Even Brazil with free land from chopping jungle, essentially free labor, and Third World minimal agriculture fuel-ethanoled itself into national bankruptcy.

 

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Saccharum_officinarum.html

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Saccharum_officinarum.html#Energy

Fuel ethanol bottom line

 

The most efficient uses of bio fuel burn corn in a stove designed to burn wood pellets. Heating with corn at $2.50 a bushel is the same as using $(US)0.64/gallon propane. The best deal is to burn the anhydrous ammonia fertilizer and not bother planting the corn. You must have a way to condense the exhaust and store the nitric acid for resale, and you have to keep it burning so it produces nitric acid and not merely nitrogen oxides. That one makes money. Barely."

[Biochemist]

"...That one makes money. Barely."

Thanks, UA- A detailed, articulate response as always.

[Qfwfq]

Even Brazil with free land from chopping jungle, essentially free labor, and Third World minimal agriculture fuel-ethanoled itself into national bankruptcy.

I haven't yet been through those links for lack of time but, as I understood it, Brazil was using agricultural waste and not material grown to the sole purpouse of ethanol production. Regardless of what Brazil or other countries have done, it would certainly be smart to use husks, leaves, stems, roots and whatever would otherwise be thrown away. Can you give a brief and essential outline of how national bankruptcy could ensue from such a thing?

 

Another good idea is organic waste that farmers traditionally use for natural fertilizer, commonly called manure. It is usually left to mature by decomposition. This produces a lot of methane which is better for the environment than other hydrocarbons, as well as alcohol. More hydrogen and less carbon. The methane is usually just dispersed into thin air.

 

Like many people, you mention money. We're not talking just about money we're talking about our future. Everybody's future.

[TeleMad]

This produces a lot of methane which is better for the environment than other hydrocarbons, as well as alcohol. More hydrogen and less carbon. The methane is usually just dispersed into thin air.

 

Methane released into the atmosphere is far from innocuous.

 

While manure-derived methane is proving very useful, the methane cows burp is causing problems. Methane is a greenhouse gas and, in the atmosphere, contributes to global warming. Cows burp an abundant supply of it every day — about 280 liters per animal (in other words, the average cow could fill 140 two-liter soda bottles with gas daily). Unfortunately, burped methane is more difficult to collect, with the result that about six million metric tons of it float blissfully up into the atmosphere every year. And that's just from herds in the United States. (Worldwide, ruminant livestock — including cattle, sheep, goats, and buffalo — produces about 80 million metric tons of methane per year, accounting for 22% of anthropogenic methane emissions.)

 

Methane is second only to carbon dioxide in the list of greenhouse gases. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it's 21 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2 (a fact that can be attributed to the larger size of CH4 molecules). The six million tons of methane that North American cows burp annually are equivalent to 36 million tons of carbon dioxide.

(http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/03/032502t_cowpower.jhtml)

[Qfwfq]

Now that's interesting!

 

I thought most of it came out the other end. :)

[Qfwfq]

Perhaps TeleMad you were referring to: "methane which is better for the environment"?

 

Obviously I meant as a fuel. Burning a mole of it produces 4 moles of water, only one mole of CO2. Next best thing to hydrogen as a fuel but less troublesome.

 

Over here methane and LPG have both been in use as alternative motor fuel for decades. It used to be done only by private people, just for the saving, with a switch between the gas and gasoline. More recently methane has become the issue because it pollutes less and some townships began to have fleet vehicles running on it with their sides painted to advertize: "I'm not polluting the air!". People appreciate it. Vehicles running on methane are incentivated, including exemption from the traffic limitations that unsue when pollution goes over certain limits.

 

I have heard that manufacturers are now selling cars with bi-power engines, being designed for it they don't run less well on methane.

 

I gave Uncle Al's links a quick look and I saw a few amusing things, including ethanol being referred to as a low-grade auto fuel. :) When I was young I knew a Canadian engineer, graduate from one of the most respected faculties in Canada, and I remember him telling me about the early days of automobiles. He said that, when the time came for manufacturers to put them in production and for widespread distribution of fuel, the choice came to be made between the two best candidates for fuel: gasoline or ethanol? They all agreed on this line: Oh, heck, you drill a hole down in Texas and petroleum comes gushing up for free! Refine it a smidgen and you're off! Short sighted, short sighted.

[C1ay]

i have found out that they have been able to turn coal into oil... does anyone know how i could personally do this?

 

Here's a white paper that could get you started. It does not look like a cheap process. I hope you have money to burn.

[Biochemist]

Methane released into the atmosphere (through cow burps) is far from innocuous.

It seems to me that if we could just get cows to burp into a tank, and then have the tank self-ignite once it reaches a critical volume, we could have an auto-barbecue.

 

We just have to figure some natural source for about 50-80 gallons of barbecue sauce.