Back during the oil embargo, I was home on leave. At the annual family 4th of July picnic, the discussion of the embargo was a hot topic. One of my uncles who never lost his cool went ballistic! He stated we didn’t need their damn oil! Paul was college educated before the war; he was a navigator on a B-17 crew. Although wounded in late 42 he was brought back to the states to teach. He was tapped to go back to help collect Intel and technology and traveled extensively thru Germany.

He told us that the” krauts had been refining vast amounts of coal into gasoline since the 30s and that we had brought back complete plans to the refineries” This was a jaw drop moment for me that I never forgot. Then in 1980 a movie came out, The Formula.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080754/

I also found while reading my first print of Berlin Diary by William L Shirer on pages 577-578 “ The German air force is absolutely independent of imported stocks of oil. All German airplanes are designed and manufactured to operate on synthetic gasoline which Germany manufactures herself from her own coal. Her present supply of this some four million tons a year is more then adequate for the needs of the Luftwaffe.”

Fast forward internet era. This Senate hearing was April 24, 2006. I believe the price per barrel of oil at this time was 62.00.

http://fossil.energy.gov/news/testimony/....

Coal can be turned into liquid fuel (gasoline or a diesel replacement) but it is expensive. The issue is the price - at a high enough price we can provide plenty of fuel.

Yeah... the question is whether at that price any of our institutions work.

Acording to this hearing. “Technoeconomic Analysis of a Wyoming Located Coal-To-Liquids Plan”] that indicate synthetic oil costs may drop into the $35 per barrel range after several initial higher cost plants are built.

That coal contains 13 times as much nuclear energy as it contains chemical energy so even if the conversion efficiency is only 1/3 using the thorium contained in the coal to make hydrocarbons is still a win.

Why ignore 92% of the available energy in coal?

South Africa had an extensive coal-to-oil operation during the apartheid-era embargo, and IIRC still operates one or two of the plants. As already noted, it's expensive compared to conventional oil. That said, the process is getting new attention lately since the IEA finally admitted last month that global conventional oil production peaked in 2006.

ETA: Dollar cost is only one barrier. The other is the energy return on energy invested. I've seen coal-to-oil EROEI at about 8, meaning it takes one barrel of oil energy to produce eight barrels of oil energy. Not bad, but generally much lower than conventional oil, which has run as high as 100 in the past.

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That coal contains 13 times as much nuclear energy as it contains chemical energy so even if the conversion efficiency is only 1/3 using the thorium contained in the coal to make hydrocarbons is still a win.

Why can't you do both? Wouldn't the thorium be left in the residue from the conversion process? I would hope it wouldn't end up in the liquid fuel...

Also from the hearing, for the tree huggers.

These indirect liquefaction of coal processes produce clean, zero sulfur liquid fuels that are cleaner than required under the EPA Tier II fuel regulations.

Punch_rockgroin wrote..

Why can't you do both?

You could. I'm more concerned about what we do with the larger energy source than whatever happens to the remaining 8%. You could even just put it back in the ground.

So, if one were to put energy independence as the top priority, it naturally follows that one would provide a stable floor on the cost of a barrel of oil in order to guarantee investments in coal-to-liquid technologies and plants. Or, perhaps, impose tariffs that guarantee the floor on the cost of _imported_ oil.

And, perhaps, the thorium in coal could be split, and the power generated thus fed into a process that converted atmospheric CO2 + water into hydrocarbon fuels, which are the safest and most straightforward way of carrying large quantities of hydrogen around.

Abn is correct.

I've talked about this multiple times. Use the thorium to provide the power for liquid conversion for the energy uses that require it.

This is a dead-nuts no-brainer.

After college I worked for a scientist/entrepreneur that was working on a business model using the Burgess process to make oil from coal. His plan was to use excess energy from nuclear power plants to refine the oil into jet fuel. Then sell the jet fuel to airlines. At the time (2005) he could sell it under $.99/gallon and it cost him somewhere in the .60-range. I don't know if he was ever successful because it was sort of a crackpot and spent all his money on stupid stuff. I will say he was brilliant, but he had been screwed in business that he wanted too much control.

You know, all these things are possible but they don't address the elephant. Please open the link and turn turn page 7. Over the next 25 years we will need to replace over 50 million barrels/day capacity JUST from the decline in current producing fields. Please everyone also note that this chart INCLUDES unconventional oil from tar sands, nat gas, enhanced recovery, ethanol etc. So what I hear is that it's not a big deal to develop the technology and distribution to provide the equivalent of FIVE, that's right, FIVE Saudi Arabia's over the next 25 years. Yea, now there's a plan. Good freaking luck with that. I'd be more than happy to be wrong but none of this appears to address the big problem.

http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/w....

I think you mean Bergius Process.

Peak Oil occurred in the U.S. in 1971, +/- a year. For the rest of the world, it's just a matter of time.

Key word in the U.S. oil situation is SCALE:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petro....

The time it would take for all of the processes discussed above to ramp up to the production levels listed in the link above is plenty of time for wars in the Middle East, supply interruptions, shortages, and a collapse of the U.S. economy usually attributed to the dimming future of the dollar.

And so it goes, and has gone, for nearly 40 years, with no energy policy, nor political will, nor long-term commitment of the body politic.

+1 Mr Gone.

He's got it correct. It is possible to do this, but it only goes part way towards solving what for the US will be..and IS currently becoming a large issue....decline in net global oil imports. Peak production is upon us. Look to the IEA's latest missive which basically admitted that it was probably 2006 for global peak. CTL(Coal to Liquid) is energy intensive and it happens to be a very dirty way to liberate carbon, making it even possibly more expensive as we go down the cap and tax path with the over reactions to GW.

I cant stress this enough..folks who have been studying this particular issue are beginning to understand that no real alternatives will be used until we are forced to. Either by price,oil is still very cheap for what it does for us, or by necessity. When I say forced, I mean drastic actions due to shortages and extreme price volatility. We have come very near the shortage issue several times over the last two to three years.

Global oil production is on a plateau and has been since late 2004. Even with massive increases in price it appears that attempting to increase this production is difficult at best, and possibly not do able without damaging existing reservoirs.

There are no "capped wells" sitting waiting for the right price. There are no HUGE undiscovered reservoirs waiting in the wings. Oil storage afloat is basically gone. We need high price for the industry to search for and exploit remaining resources.

Its a simple issue with no real solutions other than a REAL energy policy which involves planning for the mitigation of the decline in global oil production. We need tough leadership to educate and execute a plan to buy us some time over the next decade to learn to use less oil and more alternatives. Even with that we still have a huge problem here in the US. We use 19mb/day and we only produce a tad over 5.

I'm pretty sure even with a maximum effort FT process for CTL we only solve a small piece of that puzzle anytime soon.

In Mr Gone's link...this one is key...

"World oil production by type in the New Policies Scenario"

Pay very close attention to the light blueand medium blue sections of the graph and try to understand the message it is conveying.

Pilot, I'm afraid they are too busy watching the images in the mirrors, or perhaps the shifting smoke (or sands as it may be)...

Sad part is that many, even here, see everything as fixable/correctable - if "we" could only get rid of those "fill in the blanks" our problems would be solved...

Blah blah.

The solution to high prices is...... high prices.

There's no inability to make as much liquid hydrocarbon as you would like. There is only a question as to how much it will cost.

Moved to Softs - if you want to play this game, Gone, do it in the right place, or you will be gone.

Yup. Peak Oil is a non-issue to most on TF. Offshore drilling, techno-fixes, and drilling in _______. Will solve everything. Some here even adhere to abiotic oil theory.

Spank, what would be the alternative to this view?

Nomullet-

An alternative view would be one which looks at the realities of resource depletion and the necessity of providing strategies to mitigate the effects of rising hydro-carbon prices. Simply drawing a line on a graph 50 years into the future and saying "This is how much oil there will be!" is not realistic. Current estimates from the IEA require the discovery, development and exploitation of 4 new Saudi Arabias in the next 30 years to meet their projections. Talk to the experts at the oildrum. It isn't out there. Not in any currently economically exploitable form anyway.

The fact is that we, all of us, have been the recipients of a fantastic one time gift from the planet. Millions of years of stored solar energy that we can burn and generate huge amounts of incredibly cheap energy from. Every person on this forum lives better than virtually any king or queen in history. Why? Because we all have about 100 energy slaves working for us all the time. We need to prioritize what this gift is used for and allocate it to the highest use. That means developing a real energy policy, getting people to understand that jet skis and tractor pulls and 70 mile commutes to work are NOT sustainable.

Focus on powering down, developing nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, and most importantly transmission and storage technologies. Hydrocarbons have been cheap and easy and abundant, but we are burning through them at a prodigious rate. IMHO, by 2015 the debate will be over. Peak Oil will be a widespread and understood concept. The adaptation will be like recycling aluminum cans. It will just become part of the culture.

As Karl says the cure for high prices is...high prices. Watch how many carpools, bus passes and bicycles pop up when gas crosses $5/gallon.

Spank out.

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There's no inability to make as much liquid hydrocarbon as you would like. There is only a question as to how much it will cost.

Well thats probably impossible with a finite resource. For any reasonable period of time...say the next ten years this will be true..but prices, especially volatile ones play havoc with the industry.

I'd submit that this view...is a bit short sighted. We could be doing so much more. The folks in power/decision making positions feel exactly the same way and this mindset leads to catastrophic consequences when the realization that you have waited far too long for real action sets in. This is how wars get started.

Spank,

Randy-

I'm assuming that is some sort of insult, but it doesn't make sense to me. My discussing an alternative approach to resource depletion equals using a penis pump?