Green Car Congress: South African Researchers Planning Coal-to-Liquids Plant in China

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South African Researchers Planning Coal-to-Liquids Plant in China

15 February 2007

Researchers from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Centre of Material and Process Synthesis (COMPS) are planning to build a pilot coal-to-liquids (CTL) project in the Shaanxi province in China. The R75-million (US$10.5-million) pilot project is expected to be 30% more efficient than the current technology and will consist of seven reactors.

The project is being funded by the Golden Nest Technology Group, which contracted in 2003 for the development of the conceptual foundation of a coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant with a production capacity of 3 million tonnes a year. If the pilot project is successful, the first commercial plant will be built.

The main aim of this multidisciplinary project is to make cleaner, faster and cheaper fuel from coal. This project is unique in that it is the largest project of this caliber undertaken by a university in this field. With eight COMPS staff members and twenty research students working on the project, it provides excellent training for the team to work on developing a life-size plant from scratch, with minimal fundamental information.

—Brendon Hausberger, a Director of COMPS

COMPS will partner with international teams to design and oversee the development of the 100,000 tonnes per year demonstration plant in China in the next year. The team is looking at an optimized design of a plant that has low capital costs such that a group of smaller investors could raise the capital; has a low risk design, is inherently stable to operate and start up and is suited for the environment in a developing economy, in terms of operator skills and capital intensity.

The concepts that will be explored in this project with a view to implementation in subsequent plants, could help to reduce the CO₂ emissions in coal-based economies, according to Professor David Glase, one of the project leaders. He says that this will be vital in terms of increased economic efficiency as well as in the future if limitations and taxes are put on CO₂ emissions internationally.

The COMPS technology could reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 6.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per ton of fuel produced, from the current level of 7.5 tonnes, according to one report. One metric ton of diesel fuel is equivalent to about 300 gallons US. The COMPS research team is also looking at combining gas-to-liquids (GTL) and coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology, which would potentially cut emissions further.

China currently has about 27 coal-based chemicals and fuels projects in construction, planning and or feasibility stages.

February 15, 2007 in China, Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) | Permalink | Comments (48) | TrackBack (0)

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Coal produces about 1.7 more co2 per unit of energy than natural gas. On a coal equivalent basis, therefore, natural gas emits an equivalent of 4.4 tons of co2 per ton. So even if this project is successful, a big if, the co2 output from a ton of coal will be 47% greater than the energy equivalent amount of natural gas.

Coal produces about 1.25 more co2 per unit of energy as oil. Therefore the coal equivalent value for oil is 5.2 tons. Therefore, the co2 output from a ton of coal will be 25% greater than the energy equivalent of oil, assuming a successful project.

Even with our current energy mix, we are in the process of accumulating an unprecedented amount of co2 in the atmosphere, gases that will take a hundred years to disappear. All forms of coal, unless sequestered in some way are, a diaster for the planet. Oil and natural gas are a disaster, as well, but at least their availability appears to be peaking within a relatively short time frame. Oil may have aleready peaked.

There is no green liquid fuel; there are only shades of black and brown.

This site purports to be devoted to sustainable mobility. These kinds of "breakthroughs" are good examples of unsustainable mobility.

Posted by: t | Feb 15, 2007 7:01:50 AM

What did you expect? China and the us and a few other polaces have vast coal resources they will tap. If we are very lucky the us will at least use the coal to make various fuels then use the co2 ro make even more fuel or sequester it. Itds highly dountful all that many others will.

Posted by: wintermane | Feb 15, 2007 7:52:38 AM

The average USA/Canada personnal vehicle uses about 2 tonnes of fuel a year and produces about 8 tonnes of CO2 per vehicle per year. Total = about 250 million x 2 tonnes = 500 million tonnes of fuel per year producing 8 x 250 million = 2 000 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Asumming that all this fuel was produced with Coal to Liquid fuel plants, the CO2 produce at the conversion plants would be about 7.5 x 500 million tonnes = 3 750 million tonnes per year.

Producing + burning this fuel in our ICE vehicles would produce about 2 000 + 3 750 = 5 750 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Would this be acceptable?

If the rest of the world switches to fuel from coal, the total CO2 produced per year would be about 4X the above..

Posted by: Harvey D. | Feb 15, 2007 8:06:10 AM

The good news there, Harvey, is that we'd literally burn through our "vast" coal reserves pretty quickly. The atmosphere would be knackered and there'd be a lot fewer humans to continue screwing it up.

Posted by: tripp | Feb 15, 2007 8:55:47 AM

So they create these and then slowly convert them to biomass-to-liquids. At least they help avert worldwide fuel security issues in the meantime.

Posted by: APosterFormerlyKnownAsAndy | Feb 15, 2007 9:51:10 AM

There is no green liquid fuel; there are only shades of black and brown.
What? You mean we are all going to DIE? Oh no!

Tell you what, t, print out your slogan and stick it above your bed on the cave wall. Then sit back and watch the world provide you wrong.

I know, from a US perspective things can look pretty grim, especially if you look at Washington expecting to see leadership. "Hey-hey, let's convert some food->fuel, make the farmers rich and make absolutely no difference in our oil imports! At huge cost to the tax payer!" LOL

But look a little closer and there are some real GREEN liquid fuel technologies, much of it flying under the radar, much of it in the early stages of development. Technologies such as TDP/TCP, Choren, 4PD/H, etc.

Humans are pretty adaptable, especially when facing a crisis. Get some popcorn, and watch this principle at work...

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 15, 2007 10:16:28 AM

Eng: I'm not familiar with the "under the radar" TLA techs you just listed, do you have any links or info?

Posted by: Neil | Feb 15, 2007 10:21:30 AM

If and when we run low on oil, the world will just switch over to coal based fuels. Bio-fuels are just talk until they get their volume up? Umm, about all those Co2 reductions everyone wants; let’s just see what the Politicians actually due in this area. When the high cost of clean energy hits Joe Six-pack in the wallet, does the government hold the line or will it buckle under? Europe appears to be having a tough time meeting its GHG targets right now!! High gas prices at the pump will cause more people to switch over to higher MPG cars and this is why Detroit isn’t selling as many SUVs.

Posted by: OttoV | Feb 15, 2007 12:56:05 PM

Otto, there are currently more biofuels than coal-to-liquids in use worldwide. With the significant risk involved with continued carbon emissions, I wouldn't count out a carbon tax. If so, coal will get much cleaner than this project invisions or it won't be part of the answer.

Posted by: APosterFormerlyKnownAsAndy | Feb 15, 2007 1:41:58 PM

It's not so simple as just switching fuels when the oil runs out OttoV. There is the matter of energy return on energy invested. The easiest oil just comes up out of the ground under pressure and we refine it. Coal to liquids works but requires much more energy to produce and would be next to impossible to produce in the sorts of volumes we require for our energy intensive economies, never mind the nightmarish climate consequences. If we had to switch over completely, fuel prices would skyrocket.
EV's are a much better alternative, at least for personal mobility, and have the potential to be a disruptive technology in coming years.I can't wait.

Posted by: critta | Feb 15, 2007 2:07:54 PM

An Engineer, I don't think this is going to be much of a story to eat popcorn to. Our past is littered with extinct civilizations and cultures, many times due to lack of adaptability - just read Jared Diamonds "Collapse". The last time the temperature was as hot as its predicted to be in the next couple of 100 years or so, it was the age of the dinosaurs with aligators living as far north as Greenland. I suspect any adaptions we will make will be accompianied by a lot of people failing to adapt and dying, and at a cost that dwarfs any cost of mitigation, as Stern pionts out. Some people may also dismiss the damage to the rest of earths species but this to me is also an epic tragedy and one that can't help but also impact our plight.

In fact from a US perspective it all looks quite ok so far compared to other regions and this may be one of the reasons for the delay in action we have seen. Just compare to Australia where entire towns are being abandoned through lack of water and farm land is turning to desert. I think its a good bet that Prime Minister Howard's lack of action on this issue will finally force him out of office later this year. The worst hit of course will be the poor who are in marginal land already. If you think drought has already been bad in Africa you ain't seen nothing yet. Anyone for popcorn?

Posted by: marcus | Feb 15, 2007 2:26:38 PM

Marcus:

I think your view promotes a very pessimistic attitude that makes it harder to find the solutions we seek. If your message is consistently "We're all doomed!" then you'll find that despair becomes more common than hope, and panic overrides reason.

Pessimists stop looking for solutions sooner than optimists. I highly suggest that you change your message from "We're DOOMED!" to "We can beat this!" That is the message that Engineer is trying to communicate, I think.

Posted by: Cervus | Feb 15, 2007 3:01:17 PM

Cervus,
Thanks for the kind words! UR spot-on! Attitude makes all the difference.

Incidently, if you want to see a story about how people overcome impossible odds, read up on the chemical industry during WW2. Some US stats:
1. Over the course of the war, magnesium use exploded from near zero to 2,000 ton/y, then to 125,000 ton/y.
2. In 1939 the U.S. aviation gasoline capacity was about 17,000 bbl/d. Early in 1941 forecasts were at 35,000 bbl/d, but after Pearl Harbor, these jumped to 190,000 bbl/d. A year later they grew again to 300,000 bbl/d. Finally, in 1945, AGN capacity peaked out at over 600,000 bbl/d. A 35-fold increase in only six years.
3. The overall Rubber Program built 51 plants for feed-stocks, monomers, and synthetic rubber. The SBR production grew from 3,500 ton/y in 1942 to 790,000 ton/y in 1945, a 225-fold increase in three years. In 1944 the Chemical Engineering Award was given to 67 companies for "crowding into 24 months, chemical engineering planning and construction that normally would have required many years."

BTW, the Germans did some pretty amazing things too, bringing CTL technology to full scale application.

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 15, 2007 3:24:20 PM

Engineer: What are TDP/TCP and 4PD/H?

Posted by: Neil | Feb 15, 2007 3:29:17 PM

I don't feel completely hopeless otherwise I wouldn't be reading this blog. I think the attitude that its not going to be THAT bad is also a negative for getting things done. In fact I would argue complacency is much more of a block to finding solutions than my attitude, which is not "we're doomed", more like "don't kid yourselves that its going to be pretty - we had better get MOVING on this NOW"!

Posted by: marcus | Feb 15, 2007 3:31:41 PM

Marcus,
Jared Diamond is full of it, in my honest opinion. One of his central theories is that Europeans are advanced because they happened to be lucky enough to live in a climate where they could keep cattle. Africans, on the other hand, are poor because there are no domesticated equivalents of cattle in pre-colonized Africa. [That, of course, does not explain Africa's stunning level of poverty since the end of colonization, but I digress.]

Except that Dr. Diamond conveniently overlooked a few inconvenient truths. Such as the fact that the eland, a large antelope of cattle proportions has been domesticated, with some success by farmers in Namibia. Likewise the Cape buffalo, one of Africa's Big Five (due in part to its aggressive nature), has been domesticated in Zimbabwe. The zebra is also easily domesticated - the only complaint is that a zebra is even lazier than a donkey [send it to the White House!].

So Dr. Diamond seem to base his theories on some easily disproven assertions, like many future pessimists tend to do.

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 15, 2007 3:36:27 PM

Neil,
TDP/TCP = Thermal Depolymerization recently renamed Thermal Conversion Process see www.changingworldtech.com
4PD/H = Four-Phase Dehydration/Hydrogenation see www.verticalfarm.com/pdf/sci_liquid_alkanes.pdf

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 15, 2007 3:44:50 PM

Neil:

TDP/TCP is Thermal Depolymerization/Thermal Conversion Process from Changing World Technologies. Not sure about the other one.

Engineer:

I've been watching the biodiesel industry grow explosively, with one article implying that our capacity is now about 864 million gallons, which is a more than 10-fold increase from 2004, when we produced 75 million. Biodiesel is far better than corn ethanol as far as energy return is concerned.

I've got my fingers crossed on algae-based biofuels. But that is not the only technology out there. Even the F-T process described in this article could be adapted for BTL fuels.

Once the technology is there, we can expand it at an explosive pace. And CO2 emissions will drop like a rock.

Posted by: Cervus | Feb 15, 2007 3:45:59 PM

Marcus seems to have stirred up a hornet's nest. I'm not a doomer but I don't dismiss the warnings of people like Jared Diamond either. Australia is one of only about 14 countries that is a regular, large exporter of agricultural products. We have fragile soil, a highly variable climate and big problems with salinity caused by irrigation. We are almost uniquely vulnerable to climate change. I haven't heard of any towns being abandoned because of the current drought but all the major cities are on water restrictions. The public are getting much more concerned about theses issues. I wouldn't write John Howard off just yet though. I wish that I could, but he is the ultimate survivor.
What I'm saying is that if we proceed further in our current direction we are in dire trouble. We still have the ability to change but time is running short. The engineer's post is interesting and there are countless other examples of societies that have been galvanised into action in time of crisis. We need the US to declare war on climate change, maybe then we would see some of the countless billions spent in Iraq used more productively. Congress was asked for a meager $26 million a few months ago to support work on climate change and they knocked it back.

Posted by: critta | Feb 15, 2007 3:55:51 PM

Critta & Marcus,
Here's what Australia needs to do:
Take sewage, clean it up, put it back into the taps. Period.

Shock! Horror! NIMBY! Except for two realities:
1. To some degree it already happens: Let's take a big US city, say Las Vegas. Ever wondered what happens to sewage in Vegas, babe? It gets treated and returned to Lake Mead, which is also the source of Vegas' drinking water. And much of Southern California, once the water (effluent?) has made its way down the Colorado river and got pumped accross the width of California.
2. More to the point, the city (town by US standards) of Windhoek, Namibia has been augmenting its drinking water supplies with treated sewage for ~40 years. And no health problems either.

So Matilda, pinch your nose if you have to, and lead the way (waltz). Others are sure to follow...

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 15, 2007 4:37:23 PM

Article in the March issue of Popular Science: "The Prophet of Garbage", about Joseph Longo's plasma converter that can create syngas. Eliminates the need for landfills, can eat just about anything, including biomass, and produces more electricity than it uses. We can use F-T for the syngas to create diesel, gasoline, or natural gas.

Posted by: Cervus | Feb 15, 2007 4:47:41 PM

Cervus,
Biodiesel is potentially somewhat promising, but I think there are better technologies around. My concern is that the search for alternative fuels have gotten off to a bad start and things seem to be getting more confusing. Here are two of my guiding principles:
1. We need a different fuel SOURCE, not just a different CARRIER fuel. What good is hydrogen, if you make it out of natural gas? What good is ethanol, if for every 80,000 BTU of it you required 36,000 BTU of natural gas (as Scientific American recently reported)? Why invest in a fuel that needs new production facilities, new transportation infrastructure, new filling stations and new vehicles? There must be a better way (and there is IMHO).
2. Whatever the fuel SOURCE that ends up replacing oil, it won't be FOOD! At a small scale US agricultural subsidies support this lunatic notion. In energy terms the 4 billion gal of ethanol produced in 2005 was enough to replace just under 1% of US oil consumption. In 2006, increased demand for corn (from all those new ethanol plants) has already increased the price of corn by 50%. In 2007, things are set to get worse: corn prices going through the roof (affecting a host of food prices), ultimately pricing ethanol out of the fuel market, even after those generous subsidies. There must be a better fuel SOURCE, and there is: WASTE. Free (actually you can paid for taking much of it), plentiful and renewable.

Using these two criteria one can evaluate a host of alternative fuel technologies: Corn ethanol fail both criteria, converting food into a fuel that requires special handling. Cellulosic ethanol fail criterium #1, while passing #2. Biodiesel made from edible oil specialy harvested for the purpose fail both criteria, while biodiesel made from waste grease, only fail the first criterium.

The truly promising technologies are those that meet both criteria: those that convert waste into liquid hydrocarbons that can be blended into the existing fuel supply with no special requirements. Technologies that can do that include:
1. Gasification/Fischer-Tropsch
2. TDP/TCP
3. 4PD/H

Only when we have achieved close to full utilization of waste, will it be necessary to consider energy crops. Here the main aim would be YIELD. There can only be one winner: algae. On the scale that is needed I believe we are talking of an ocean based system. But that is pretty far into the future: there is a lot of waste that is waiting to be converted into fuel!

This is win-win-win: the environment wins (twice) in that landfill waste is reduced and CO2 levels stabilized. The local economy wins in that new jobs are created to produce some local fuel. Security-wise you get to reduce oil imports, sending less money to the crazies. And no wasteful replacement of fuel storage and transportation infrastructure. No need to replace the existing vehicle fleet.

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 15, 2007 6:22:13 PM

Posted by: marcus | Feb 15, 2007 7:27:36 PM

An Engineer notes the availability of waste, but conspicuously fails to quantify

How much of it there is, and
How much demand it can satisfy.

These are crucial questions. If he has answers to them, I'd like to see his proposal for tackling the combined problems of shrinking energy returns from fossil fuels and GHG emissions. If he has anything I haven't taken into account yet, I'd sure like to know about it.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Feb 15, 2007 10:23:51 PM

An Engineer notes the availability of waste, but conspicuously fails to quantify

How much of it there is, and
How much demand it can satisfy.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Feb 15, 2007 10:26:37 PM

All these engineers! I should start calling myself the Worried Scientist....
Anyway, you are entitled to your opinion on Diamond, An Engineer, it just annoys me a little that you can dismiss someone who's pretty much devoted their entire working life to studying these issues, so quickly with a few hand waving comments. He is a world expert. I read the book many years ago and still consider it one of the best books I've read.

Posted by: marcus | Feb 15, 2007 11:12:19 PM

I'm a historian, not an engineer or scientist and an academic librarian by profession. I've read Guns, Germs, and Steel and it makes perfect sense. Geography and history are very tightly entwined.

Posted by: Cervus | Feb 15, 2007 11:27:56 PM

Dear posters, why everything should be blown out of proportions in such ridiculous way? The world around us is way more complicated than our oversimplified interpretation.

Coal-to-liquid could complement sizeable amount of exported oil for countries without adequate oil reserves or money to buy oil freely, at least at the time. It will never be major source of liquid fuel, period. And it will never be exhausted, at least for couple of thousand years. I do not think we will use coal in 100 years from now for anything more then cement and iron production.

Biofuels could economically supplement 10-15% of our current oil demand. In worst case scenario (peak oil), we can reduce oil demand for transportation by going 50% electric, and the rest supply from remaining oil, biofuel, and synthetic fuel.

Corn ethanol is perfect way to supplement and improve our current gasoline stock, for about 3-5% of current demand, and also the best ever invented way to stabilize corn prices on decent level, having ample food spare capacity without troubles of overproduction (corn prices collapse and farmers bankruptcy), and the way to revitalize rural America. Anyone thinking that corn ethanol or biodiesel is silver bullet probably has never been outside big city limits.

Same with waste to fuel. An Engineer should google “waste to fuel” to find out ample data, and inevitably estimations of one of the experts on the subject, Engineer-Poet. Estimations are that waste-to-fuel could physically satisfy 5-10% of our fuel demand, economy out of question. I found Engineer-Poet estimations over optimistic. Recycling of any useable portion of waste makes more sense then combustion, and landfill biogas returns back most of usable energy content of garbage anyway.

Speaking of out of proportion, GW scare is the champion. For mercantile, political, and ideological reasons it is inflated to the extend of dot com bubble.

Scientific facts: it is proved that warmer climate produces more precipitation and less droughts; increased CO2 concentration significantly increases tolerance of plants to drought conditions; Earth biosphere as a whole benefits from warmer climate; adaptability of plants and living creatures to climate changes are by the order of magnitude higher than any projected speed of climate change; for 8 years global temperatures did not increased, oceans slightly cooled, and most probably we are entering temperature downward trend.

Scarcity of water is fairy tale for people never been outside. Check numbers for Israel agriculture export, amount of rice and citrus grown in California, and how much oranges are exported from Morocco and Algeria. For every glass of orange juice produced 1000 glasses of water is needed. Period. Restrictions for summer usage of water in city is clear evidence of incompetent city management. We have it too in Vancouver (dubbed “Raincoover” ).

P.S. Jarrred Diamond is a biologist. I find his books very interesting from that point of view. At least I got the idea why European diseases devastated North America and not the way around. His historical and civilization evolution ideas are… well, interesting.

Cervus:

Wow! I seriously think that librarian and historian would make better political leader that currently proliferated lawyer. Or other leader, for that matter.

Posted by: Andrey | Feb 16, 2007 2:45:53 AM

This reminds me of the amd vs intel and ati s nvidia threads only with more SCIENCE!

FRact is right now it looks like corn will find its place simple because the corn plant can be modded to produce good solid results and because we already produce so much corn for corn surup that we prolly have plenty of room for oil.

As for h2. Never underestimate a bunch of super rich geeks and an indtsry hungry to find a new fuel to sell.

If there is a way they will make it work and so far they are doing amazingly well.

As for ev.. Again welthy geeks and people wnating to sell stuff adds up to a force worth watching... Not as large a geek factor as h2 and not as large an EVIL!!!!! corp backing but hey give it time im sure they can become evil enough sooner or later.

And biofuels.. other then raping rainforests and likely causing dozens of environmental nightmares we wont figure out till we are mutating or whatever... it looks promising that they can make a fair supply. Not enough but a fair supply.

Posted by: wintermane | Feb 16, 2007 8:47:46 AM

In the long run, clean energy availability will not be a problem. The sun and many other relatively clean sources can supply all the energy we need and/

1) We will learn how to use energy much more effciently, enough to reduce the total requirement by 50% and much more in certain areas. Energy used for lighting (25% of total) can be easily reduced by 70% with high efficiency Florescents and long lasting (life time) LED, etc.

2) Energy conservation will become an accepted way to behave and will also contribute to the overall energy efficiency. Generating less wastes and converting the unavoidable to energy may be (a minor) but important part of it, etc.

3) Abundant clean energy (mostly electrical) will fulfill the majority of our future energy requirements.

4) Our grand (or great grand) children will be amused (or disgusted) by all these discussions about using food to produce fuel for our inefficient ICE gas guzzlers, while millions are starving.

5) Unproductive (desert) areas in Africa could produce enough clean electrical energy to satisfy Europe + Africa and better feed it's people with the revenues.

6) USA and Mexico + many others could do likewise.

Posted by: Harvey D. | Feb 16, 2007 9:57:25 AM

Andrey and whoever else is interested in a fairly short summary of the conclusions of the IPCC take a look at this PDF.

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Andrey take special note of figure SPM-7 that summarizes the predicted changes in precipitation between 180-1999 compared to 2090-2099. What you will notice in general is the negative change situated over most of the subtropical regions. In fact it indicates an expansion of the subtropical dry zone or movement of the Hadley cell pole-ward. While countries located more towards the poles may in general receive more precipitation, a large proportion of countries closer to the equator will receive less. These changes have already been occurring as has been noted for Australia previously. Also note that it is not merely temperatures that are changing, the energy of weather systems will increase making it harder for agriculture in general. Part of the problem is one of adaptation, as has been discussed previously. If a national border or the sea prevents you from moving towards more rain what do you do? Our present agricultural systems are geographically based on the weather systems that have been in place for millennia. This is not doom and gloom or some concocted global conspiracy designed to scare you. It is a presentation of the best scientific forecasts available. Holding out that this is a scam borders on delusional. While I think we can adapt and mitigate the worst-case scenarios it will require global political will as well as engineering solutions.

Posted by: marcus | Feb 16, 2007 10:25:33 AM

30% increase...114 ga ethanol/ton biomass (average) -> ~148 ga/ton.
_I'd suspect the same for other syngas derived fuels. I'd wager this also bumps gasoline yield above 100 ga/ton.
_Factor in 1 billion tons of existing biomass waste as feedstock, and you may get ~2.4 billion barrels (gasoline equivalent). That is a bit over 6.6 million barrels/day.

Posted by: allen_xl_Z | Feb 16, 2007 2:23:48 PM

An Engineer notes the availability of waste, but conspicuously fails to quantify
1. How much of it there is, and
2. How much demand it can satisfy.
E-P,
You got to be kidding me! You don't have a number in mind? I guess we will have to trust Uncle Sam (a.k.a. UDSA/DOE), then. Q1: 1.3 billion ton/year. Q2: Enough to replace a third of our transportation fuel demand. I know, the report is a bit short on tech info (such as what exactly the third adds up to, what conversion efficiency [if any] was used, etc.), and it is probably optimistic. But even so, I rate it as the best alternative to persue, certainly much better than corn (or any) ethanol.

These are crucial questions.
Amen to that.

If he has answers to them, I'd like to see his proposal for tackling the combined problems of shrinking energy returns from fossil fuels and GHG emissions.
Once again, you disappoint, E-P! Pull yourself together!

Let's see: I propose we take a free resource and convert it to something useful. In effect that means using the energy in the material twice. It also means replacing fossil fuels with renewable fuel. So much for shrinking fossil fuels and GHG.

If he has anything I haven't taken into account yet, I'd sure like to know about it.
I have to plead ignorance. What have you taken into account?

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 16, 2007 3:32:19 PM

Sasol's knowledge has huge potential.

Sasol has been producing Fischer-Tropsch synthetic liquid fuels (Synfuels)
on a large commercial scale for many years.

gasandoil.com comments:
"It has long been too expensive to compete with standard crude oil.
On the plus side, sulphur and other pollutants such as ash and mercury are removed
-- the sulphur can be sold as a by-product
-- and carbon dioxide is segregated and can be injected underground.
If hydrogen is needed for fuel cells, these plants can also provide it.
In the near term, the petrol and diesel produced are high grade and clean,
meeting even future 'lean diesel' requirements of the United States. "

"The real question is if these plants can be built and reliably produce fuels
for less than $ 20 a barrel.
Sasol already produces 150,000 bpd from coal.
(Conversion from natural gas is cheaper
and Sasol is in the process of switching its feedstock to gas in South Africa.)
Each of the Chinese plants would be four times as large as the existing Sasol plant,
and scaling up can involve difficulties.
If Sasol can make these larger plants work at the publicised costs,
this technology could be used by many other nations -- rich and poor --
who are willing to forego periods of very cheap oil for more security. "

http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex43159.htm

$20 per barrel (42 US gal or about 160 litres) implies raw material cost of
50 cents per gallon or 12.5 cents per litre.
When oil was $18 per barrel that was uneconomic.
With rapidly rising wages in China, CTL will probably cost more now,
but while the crude oil price ranges from $35 to $60,
CTL could offer competitive and stable costs.

Wits University is researchiing the fourth-generation of Sasol technology
which the above article says
"is expected to be 30% more efficient than the current technology".

MIT estimates that Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS)
costs about 1 to 2 cents per kilowatt hour
which is about 10 to 20 cents per litre (38 to 76 per gallon) of liquid fuel.

http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/David_and_Herzog.pdf

Known coal reserves are more than 300 years and widely dispersed geographically.

Sasol CTL + CCS might offer the possibility of CTL fuel with CCS
at a cost of 88 to 136 cents per gallon
(or even less if the fourth generation technology delivers
the efficiency improvements hoped for).

In places where waste Biomass costs less to collect than coal + CCS,
Sasol's Fisher-Tropoff research & development will make synthetic biofuels
("BTL" or "Sunfuel") more cost competitive.

Hence if this project is successful it could give many countries an alternative
to importing OPEC oil.
The impact of that could be to put a ceiling on the price OPEC can demand
for its oil.
Western governments might also then have a choice of buying oil from OPEC
or buying CTL from a large range of suppliers.

Posted by: Polly | Feb 16, 2007 3:38:02 PM

An Engineer, your one sentence dismissal the Pulitzer prize winning book "Guns Germs and Steel" by the UCLA Prof. unfortunately betrays quite a shallow understanding of the issues and a heavy bias. What is your bias? What are your explanations for some of the issues raised in the book?
I see, the fact that the guy is an academic at a respected institution means he is above making huge mistakes? How ignorant of me.

I'm sorry, I think the guy's ideas are preposterous. Want to tell me that we are all victims of climate and that nothing we do can change that? Sorry, I don't buy that, no matter who is selling...

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 16, 2007 3:39:15 PM

Markus:

Climate models can not predict (IPCC prefer to use word “project”) future by principle, because climate (and weather) is chaotic system. Climate models failed miserably to explain observed in last 25 years climate changes. Especially spectacular was failure to predict regional climate patterns. See, for example:

http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm

Observed general trend is quite clear: warmer climate means more precipitation on global level. How it will be distributed – nobody knows. But only very naïve person could believe that nature will selectively increase rainfall in wet places and decrease it in dry, just to make our life miserable.

Regional climate variations, regardless of climate change (climate is always changing, it is just doing it very slowly), routinely produced severe multi-year droughts in the past, and will produce in the future, and we should be prepared for it anyway.

World food production is suffering from severe overproduction (20% of US corn was distilled to fuel ethanol this year, half of Brazil is driving on sugar cane, Europe paying 50 billions yearly for their farmers to not produce, Asia is converting to drive on vegetable oil), and international trade could take care of any regional droughts in a snap of the fingers.

P.S. Currently agriculture accounts for 5% of global GDP, and in Australia (major world food exporter) only 3.5%. In 20 years yield of crops per ha in Australia increased by 60%. Take a look how Australian agriculture “suffer” from Global Warming:

http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/agriculture-food/country-profile-9.html

Posted by: Andrey | Feb 16, 2007 4:53:53 PM

Dear posters, why everything should be blown out of proportions in such ridiculous way? The world around us is way more complicated than our oversimplified interpretation.
Dear Andrey,
You take the prize for unsupported generalizations and misrepresentations! Taking it from the top...

Coal-to-liquid could complement sizeable amount of exported oil for countries without adequate oil reserves or money to buy oil freely, at least at the time.
OK, whatever...

It will never be major source of liquid fuel, period.
Never say never, especially without any kind of logic or supporting evidence. Who knows? Coal may be THE source of liquid fuels 50 years from now...

And it will never be exhausted, at least for couple of thousand years. I do not think we will use coal in 100 years from now for anything more then cement and iron production.
Again, saying never, without any kind of explanation. And coal use for cement production is already being replaced with renewable fuels (E-P, I trust you are on top of this) such as MSW and biosolids.

Biofuels could economically supplement 10-15% of our current oil demand.
I actually agree with your number, but note you again fail to show how it was determined.

In worst case scenario (peak oil), we can reduce oil demand for transportation by going 50% electric, and the rest supply from remaining oil, biofuel, and synthetic fuel.
Peak Oil = Worst case scenario? How? Right now global warming seems a tad more urgent. Even if oil peaked today, it would probably take five years before we notice a definite downward trend. And by then the oil price will have destroyed quite a bit of demand, as it did in 2006.

And why 50% from electric? How did you calculate that? How about 10% electric?

Also, you may know that electricity is not a source of energy. So where does the electricity come from?

Corn ethanol is perfect way to supplement and improve our current gasoline stock, for about 3-5% of current demand,...
Here is a free example of the sort of supporting evidence I am referring to: In 2005, about 14% of the US corn harvest (about 10 billion bushels) was used to produce 4 billion gallons of ethanol. After factoring in that ethanol only has about 2/3rds the energy per gallon that gasoline has, that would be enough to replace 0.87% of the US crude demand (~20 million bbl/d).

So, if 100% of the 2005 corn harvest was converted to ethanol, it would replace 6.2% of US oil consumption. Note that this not workable - are we going to import all the corn we eat? How expensive is corn (and a host of other foods) going to get under this scenario?

...and also the best ever invented way to stabilize corn prices on decent level, having ample food spare capacity without troubles of overproduction (corn prices collapse and farmers bankruptcy), and the way to revitalize rural America.
LOL! I guess you failed to notice that corn prices is up 50% already - and climbing as ethanol plants are spreading like a disease through the midwest. Here's the problem: assuming farmers enjoy those high corn prices, who is going to buy the expensive corn ethanol? You can't have it both ways: either high corn prices help farmers and kill corn ethanol, or low corn prices kill farmers but help corn ethanol.

Anyone thinking that corn ethanol or biodiesel is silver bullet probably has never been outside big city limits.
OK, you nailed that one. In general converting food to fuel is so stupid, only a politician would support the idea...

Same with waste to fuel. An Engineer should google “waste to fuel” to find out ample data, and inevitably estimations of one of the experts on the subject, Engineer-Poet. Estimations are that waste-to-fuel could physically satisfy 5-10% of our fuel demand, economy out of question.
Again, no support for your numbers. And waste to fuel makes a much more sense than food to fuel. Don't loose sleep over the economy of it, when you take waste (unlike food) you are not competing for a scarce commodity, you are not taking food of people's tables, and you get a huge environmental benefit.

I found Engineer-Poet estimations over optimistic.
I find your estimates overly pessimistic. Neither statement makes any sense in the absence of evidence. See my reply to E-P above for evidence. Now we still wait to hear how you determined E-P was over optimistic.

Recycling of any useable portion of waste makes more sense then combustion,...
Nobody is arguing about that, but even at much higher recycling rates than the current norm, things eventually break down and must be tossed out, no longer recyclable.

...and landfill biogas returns back most of usable energy content of garbage anyway.
In a word: BULL! Landfill gas is a toxic mix of all sorts of unwanted compounds, and low BTU as well. In addition, you have no way to control the rate at which things break down, so you have to wait for years while certain things slowly decompose.

It is much more efficient to feed the waste to a dedicated processing plant and convert it to a liquid fuel (oil replacement) rather than electricity (no shortage of that, since ENRON melted anyway).

Speaking of out of proportion, GW scare is the champion. For mercantile, political, and ideological reasons it is inflated to the extend of dot com bubble.
Keep going Mr. Know-it-all. We are bathing our minds in your wisdom...

Scientific facts: it is proved that warmer climate produces more precipitation and less droughts;
LOL! Read marcus' reply to that. What you failed to understand (assuming you read a scientific report on the subject) is that GW leads to more frequent and larger events on both ends of the scale. As in more severe droughts, more severe storms and flooding. It has to do with heat causing more rapid evaporation and the evaporated water coming down somewhere else.

increased CO2 concentration significantly increases tolerance of plants to drought conditions;
I am going to bet you got that wrong to. Go ahead, prove me wrong with some evidence.

Earth biosphere as a whole benefits from warmer climate;
Please do explain that strange statement. I guess you are no fan of polar bears.

adaptability of plants and living creatures to climate changes are by the order of magnitude higher than any projected speed of climate change;
Tell that to the polar bears. Perhaps you meant to say :"adaptability of some plants and living creatures..." Even that would be debatable.

for 8 years global temperatures did not increased, oceans slightly cooled, and most probably we are entering temperature downward trend.
Please do share your source of information on this, and forward the good news to Al Gore. Then again, maybe you should just learn not to rely on Rush for scientific data. Here is a report that seems to differ from your opinion: The mean global surface temperature has increased by about 0.3 to 0.6°C since the late 19th century and by about 0.2 to 0.3°C over the last 40 years, which is the period with most reliable data. Recent years have been among the warmest since 1860 - the period for which instrumental records are available.

Cervus:

Wow! I seriously think that librarian and historian would make better political leader that currently proliferated lawyer. Or other leader, for that matter.
Well, I guess we agree on those...

Posted by: An Engineer | Feb 16, 2007 5:24:11 PM

"I see, the fact that the guy is an academic at a respected institution means he is above making huge mistakes? How ignorant of me."

Perhaps it has more to do with the fact he has been studying it for the last couple of decades and has been publishing in peer reviewed journals vs you? If you gave some credible references and a much more detailed critique then I would be more perceptive. Unfortunately I just don't have time to pick up the book again and read it all to argue with you myself. However, to repeat myself, you are entitled to your opinion.

"Want to tell me that we are all victims of climate and that nothing we do can change that?"

Who said that? Not me and not Jared. Although I would point out that if CO2 levels were frozen right now the world will keep warming for another 1000 years due to recent emissions.

Andrey, climate models have been far from perfect but are improving substantially now because of their increasing importance. The weather is chaotic within certain time scales and boundaries. It is the typical weather patterns that the models try to predict, not the week to week behaviour.

"But only very naïve person could believe that nature will selectively increase rainfall in wet places and decrease it in dry, just to make our life miserable."

You are making up straw men to pull down Andrey. The main "projection" is that the subtropical dry regions will get bigger. Its already happening.

Posted by: marcus | Feb 16, 2007 6:11:40 PM

read "receptive" not "perceptive" above..

Posted by: marcus | Feb 16, 2007 6:16:23 PM

OK Here's my plan
Using Chinese pebble bed technology and private money we build a series of nuclear reactors in Baja Mexico where there close to sufficent water for cooling purposes (although pebble beds need this less then conventional designs) Mexico has cheap labor, could use the money influx and is close to the major markets in the Southwest (most notably California) that would buy the energy in bulk lots. Use the money to finance huge wind and solar plants along the rest of the peninsula and slowly replace the nuclear plants (for electrical production) with renewable sources. Then use the nukes to produce hydrogen by steam cataylis cracking of seawater providing a transportable fuel for transport purposes. Mexico has fewer complex laws and permitting processes then the US and won't get embroiled in as many NIMBY problems as US sites would be. Plus the job production and economic gains to Mexico could actually reverse some of the immigrant flow we in the US whing about so much.

What do you all think?

Larry

Posted by: Larry | Feb 16, 2007 7:47:10 PM

An Engineer:

Your critique of my most is blown out of proportions.

Markus:

“6-8 thousand years ago during the Holocene Maximum, the Sahara desert wasn’t a desert but covered in jungle, with large lakes and large meandering rivers full of hippos and crocodiles.”

This is quote from one respected scientist on the subject. Nobody knows what surprises climate will flip out in the future.

Generally, I do not want to discuss any computer model projections at all. Same with Sony Play Station reality simulations.

Posted by: Andrey | Feb 17, 2007 2:42:13 AM

Well with vat grown meat phood plants not too far off and vat grown edibles of other types I dont think food is an issue for the us. Gm crops plus McPhood burgers will keep us as fat as ever.

I assume by 2050 the us can design a house that doesnt suck ass in summer heat and wont blow away with the deadly storm season and wont burn up in the fire season or wash away in the mudslide season.

Will it be "fun"... I think it will be exciting not knowing what will come and dealing with what does. Will it all work out? Yes! In the end we will feed everyone.. after all everyone we fail to feed will die and so not ecist to not be feed. In the end we will save everyone we save.. and everyone else will be dead.

In the end I will be here.. becsause im too fat the starve too loaty to drown too heavy to blown aay and far tooparanoid to be snuck up on. All of you howevr are toast.

Posted by: wintermane | Feb 17, 2007 12:27:45 PM

The IPCC GHG Report was put together by UN hacks. UN can’t do anything right (just look at the problems in Africa) and this report is just another crap example of one. So who cares if this report has 2,500 (government paid) scientists claiming Man is the cause of Global Warming because as any trained dog know; if you don’t give the right response to the Master, you will be beaten and not (paid) fed. The weather during this century will be most likely be like the weather we had the last 100 years. So how is it that some 30 years ago the computer models all said the world is just about ready to enter a new ICE AGE and how they are all saying, no it’s really the BIG MELT DOWN instead? CRAP IN = CRAP OUT.
I know all of the Gaia worshippers will never be happy because YOU somehow think that if people just went back to living that Amish life everything will be just fine. You forget that One billion Chinese live like that now and they hate it. It’s nice to see the Socialists have found is new line out of work to help keep the CAUSE going!

Anyway, China burns through 2.6B tons of coal every year right now. They also crank up a new coal based power plant every week. They have about ten million cars on the road today and it’s projected they will have 10 times that within 10-15 years. China’s yearly GHG emissions are projected to surpass the USA’s yearly GHG emissions within 10 years. So what are your guys plans for China to cut its current and future GHG emissions?

Posted by: OttoV | Feb 17, 2007 11:19:32 PM

People won't change until they feel pain. Some are thicker than others.

Posted by: Shaun Williams | Feb 19, 2007 3:31:25 AM

Climate models can not predict (IPCC prefer to use word “project”) future by principle, because climate (and weather) is chaotic system.

Weather is chaotic, but what evidence do you have that climate (the average of weather over time) is chaotic?

Posted by: Paul Dietz | Feb 19, 2007 11:04:33 AM

Paul Deietz:

Chaotic climate models:

Google ( “climate models” chaotic system ).

Now, modeling of chaotic systems is possible, for example modern state of weather models is capable to predict weather with useful accuracy for 4-6 days. The problem is more distant prediction. Initial variables in parameters compose in such high rate that prediction become useless very quickly, regardless of accuracy of initial data or sophistication of physical models and computation ability of supercomputers. Theoretical limit for accurate weather prediction is about 10-15 days.

For climate models we have so poor understanding of physical processes, very crude and very short history of reliable data (satellite measurements), and so much unpredictable variables such as volcano eruptions, massive forest fires, changes in sun brightness, extremely important fluctuation of solar wind, Earth magnetic field, Galactic radiation, etc., that current climate models are proved to be practically useless. See, for example, how miserably models failed to predict climate in our near past:

http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm

Some articles I’ve read claim that if we master climate prediction models (and it is big IF, at least for couple of decades), we will be able to predict climate for 20-30 years. Further prediction is theoretically impossible.

Posted by: Andrey | Feb 19, 2007 9:16:55 PM

Computer models are the modern equivealent of goat entrails. You have to show something to back up your words and these days its a computer model. granted the model and the goat entrails were and are only as good as your words bu somehow they add to them anyway. People just like to see it not just hear it. or read it.

Posted by: wintermane | Feb 20, 2007 7:21:56 AM

I don't think it is theoretically impossible to predict that if CO2 levels keep rising its going to get hotter. A more balanced summary of climate modelling is given here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model

I would not take Warwick Hughes's word on climate too seriously. Take a look at the commentary starting with Warwick Hughes (find : warwick) in this realclimate discussion:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/

It is very difficult for non-experts to see the merits of one scientific argument over another given selective use of data. However there is a good way of sorting through the chaf. That is to see who is actually publishing in peer reviewed journals on the topics they talk about. I went to the Warwick Huges site and found that he published about five peer reviewed papers through the nineties. Way out of date and non of them on climate modeling.

There are quite a few of these so-called retired "freelance scientists" working for various "think tanks" or "institutes". Do they actually conduct scientific research? No. All they do is scan the literature looking for any kind of hole they can find to push their political agenda. Many of these characters complain that their criticisms of the literature do not get responded to in peer reviewed papers. But the reason is that they can't get their own criticisms published in peer revewed journals because they are too flawed to begin with. Professional Scientific journals have standards. The forum for these kinds of discussions is at blogs such as realclimate.org.

Posted by: marcus | Feb 20, 2007 11:33:42 AM