Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....

If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me.....

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....

Fischer-Tropsch KnOcK!..........

I thought the Chinese were having major problems just supplying enough coal to feed their new power plants, much less burning it in their vehicles too.

Are the tree huggers freaking out about how much CO2 is produced during the production of the fuel or during the burning when it is used?

The following, in one form or another, has been sent to VP Cheney, the White House, and the McCain campaign.

My Energy Manifesto:

* Cease all ethanol production. It takes away from food production and the unintended consequence is higher food costs. As diesel prices go up, the cost of farming tips the balance of cost to make ethanol a bad idea. Just say "no" to ethanol! Even Jimmy Carter says that diverting farm production from food to fuel is dumb – even HE gets it. This will create only ONE "blend" of gasoline and will cease regional "boutique" blends (gasohols) which are stupid, costly, and meaningless. Trucking custom blends around the country is wasteful. Ethanol blends may actually lead to fewer miles to the gallon, and adds to the cost of production and transportation. Newer cars do not need oxygenated fuels.

* Lift the restrictions in order to drill for oil in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico, and other sites in the CONUS as a matter of national security.

* Encourage the petro industry to construct state-of-the-art refineries and/or retrofit current and dormant ones and crank up production for our newly-accessed oil in the CONUS.

* Make all “carbon credit” scams unlawful. Discrediting Algore should have been a slam-dunk a long time ago. Stop electing Reps who buy into the Global Warming / Global Cooling / Climate Change Hoax. CO2 is not our enemy!

* Construct SEVERAL, regional Pebble-Bed Modular Reactors (or other similar modern designs) that are rechargeable, and cleaner than any current nuclear generator design. Refine spent nuke fuel for recycling. DO SOMETHING NUCLEAR to resolve energy problems.

* Use the residual heat from the reactors above to process motor fuel from coal and/or shale. Even though Clinton "stole" some of the best coal reserves, we still have a lot to use.

* Become independent enough to make the cartels (i.e. OPEC) inconsequential.

* Convince local taxing bodies to lift or cap the sales tax on gasoline so that as gas prices go up, the local tax collectors don’t see a windfall revenue jump at the expense of the consumer. The Federal government could compel the states (and locals) to cap the fuel taxes.

If you squint real hard, and read between the lines, the ‘manifesto’ will require fewer RINOs and LibDems and the election of some clear-minded conservatives to even consider the above.

China is presently building 32 nuclear power plants to be ON-LINE by 2020 with plans for 300 more by mid century!................(with our money)...........

Chinese company.... I wonder how much Diane Feinsteins husband has invested in this venture...he is all over China looking for ways to make DiFi and himself billionaires..

...whims of OPEC ....

I think this is a myth anymore. OPEC cannot increase production in any meaningful amount to force prices to slide.

"China is presently building 32 nuclear power plants to be ON-LINE by 2020 with plans for 300 more by mid century!................(with our money)........."

Ummm, exactly which way does the wind blow out of China??? I have seen enough crap with the name CHINA stickered on it to find that fact a little disconcerting...

Yes, and oil may hold the solution to high coal prices.

The U.S. has 600 years of coal. With $142/barrel oil, Coal to oil liquefaction in the U.S. is a no-brainer. But the problem is liberals,as the Democrats/Marxists will not let us turn that coal into gasoline, oil, diesel etc.

The U.S. has an almost unlimited coal supply, the largest in the world. So your statement seems to be liberal propaganda.

I know for a fact that the US had technology back in the 1950's to make gasoline from some non-petroleum substance (I think it was coal), but then President Eisenhower shut the prototype plant down in response to a powerful petroleum lobby (no, I'm NOT slamming "big oil"; I'm merely reciting un-revised history).

The prototype plant was producing a respectable volumn (I forget the number of gallons per day, but it was significant), and the technology was thus proven viable.

Whatever the technology, at the time Eisenhower shut it down petroleum was cheap, so in that context it may not have been a bad decision. Today, however, it would seem that this successful project should be resurected with a vengence.

This would, of course, be unacceptable to liberal, socialist dummycraps in their on-going effort to destroy the middle class in good ol' USA!

Whoever wrote this one is both monstrously confused about coal to liquid and is passing this confusion on to the reader so that no one will understand the first thing about it unless he already knows.

The Fischer-Tropsch Coal-to-liquids technology has been around for nearly a century. Kerosene used to be made from coal, hence it’s other name, Coal Oil. That’s what my grandfather used to call it...............

welcome news

Okay here is my energy policy (from a post of mine about a month ago):

OIL- Drill anywhere and everywhere we think there is recoverable oil. Screw Sierra Club and National Resources Defense Council. Oil drilling does not hurt the enviroment anyway. It has a VERY small footprint.
Bio-Fuels- NO! Unless we can made cellulosic ethanol work with bio material NOT used for food.
CTL (coal-to-liquid) - YES! We are going to have to do this anyway so why not get started now. It is expensive but we know this works. With oil at $130 a barrel it is very viable.
GTL (gas-to-liquid) YES! Same as CTL above.
NUCLEAR- YES! YES! YES! We need a ambitious program NOW!
SOLAR- YES, if it can survive without subsidies.
WIND- YES (see SOLAR above).
HYDROGEN- Off in the distant future. Keep research going. If there is a breakthrough then fantastic. However we cannot depend on a breakthrough. We need Nuclear Power to get the hydrogen by cracking H2O.

NATURAL GAS- We should not build any more plants that use Nat Gas to generate electricity. Let's replace these plants with Nuclear Power Plants. Using Nat Gas to generate electricity is the biggest waste of fuel imaginable. Nat Gas is way too valuable to be used for electricity production. We should use Nat Gas for Industrial Purposes, Heating, cooking food, etc. We have enormous supplies of Nat Gas in Alaska. We can bring them down to the West Coast via LNG Tankers. We should build 5 LNG facilities on the West Coast; Seattle, Portland, SF Bay Area, Los Angeles/Long Beach. In fact let's put the LA facility at Malibu just for fun of it. If we can do these things then we can break out of this morass. We need leadership and we will not get it from Obama. We will not get it from Democrats.

You’re dreaming buddy. Coal prices are shooting up even as we speak.

It is true that we have a couple hundred years of coal, AT CURRENT CONSUMPTION LEVELS. But if you’re going to turn it into gasoline, you’re not talking about current consumption levels. You could be reducing the supply to 20 years if you did that.

Thanks for refreshing my memory!

As I recall, the plant was comissioned based on technology Ike brought back from Germany which was attempting to develop means to generate fuel for their motorized forces (both ground and air); they were running out of petroleum as the war "progressed".

Ike brought a WHOLE bunch of technology and ideas back from Germany after WWII, a highly visible example being the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System patterned after the German Autobahns!

“Coal companies, such as Bethel Park-based Consol Energy, are seeking startup capital and government bailouts for investors if oil prices drop too far.”

Gee, that's nice. Have the government cover your risk capital. That'll make for prudent investments.

What they should be covered for instead would be in case the idiots in Washington attempt to regulate them out of business with environmental controls after so many years.

Do you have a good reference on coal gas? Is this a manufactured gas?

CTL (coal-to-liquid) - YES! We are going to have to do this anyway so why not get started now. It is expensive but we know this works. With oil at $130 a barrel it is very viable.

GTL (gas-to-liquid) YES! Same as CTL above.

Or even a rope-a dope move where we fake them out by pretending to start building dozens of coal to liquid/gas facilities...they'll drop the price in self defense.

We should not build any more plants that use Nat Gas to generate electricity. Let's replace these plants with Nuclear Power Plants.

Agree that burning gas to make electricity is foolish. But replacing gas fired plants with Nukes has major technical and financial problems. Gas fired plants are virtually always used a 'peakers' not base load units. Nukes on the other hand are both technically and financially designed to operate at or near full load around the clock for long periods of time. They don't like to cycle up and down. They operate best when they sit at full power.

Replace the gas with coal fired cycling units and use the gas for CNG city fleet vehicles.

coal gas is a gas such as methane and is manufactured by the city on a daily basis for those who need gas service.

coal to liquid produces liquid fuel, the usual range being the same as petroleum to fuel: gasoline, diesel.

The U.S. does have massive reserves of Coal,hundreds of years worth as you admitted.

To reduce prices all you would need to replace with coal to oil is a small percentage of the oil the U.S. uses.

We don’t have to replace all the oil as oil has not been totally cut off. All we need to do is start drilling for more oil off the coasts, OCS, oil shale (trillions of barrels of oil), in addition to coal to oil liquefaction AND nuclear and other energy initiates like fuel cells.

You assume that we would use coal as our only source of fuel for decades when we still have huge supplies of oil ,hundreds of years of oil shale, oil sands,alternative fuels, fuel cells, nuclear etc.. That is irrational thinking and you are wrong by saying that coal to oil should not be tried. Coal to oil should be massively implemented as China and India are doing.

Yes coal to oil liquefaction would lower oil prices in the near future or even instantly because investors would see the U.S. is willing to do something.

The U.S. does have massive reserves of Coal,hundreds of years worth as you admitted.

To reduce prices all you would need to replace with coal to oil is a small percentage of the oil the U.S. uses.

We don’t have to replace all the oil as oil has not been totally cut off. All we need to do is start drilling for more oil off the coasts, OCS, oil shale (trillions of barrels of oil), in addition to coal to oil liquefaction AND nuclear and other energy initiates like fuel cells.

You assume that we would use coal as our only source of fuel for decades when we still have huge supplies of oil ,hundreds of years of oil shale, oil sands,alternative fuels, fuel cells,natural gas, nuclear etc.. That is irrational thinking and you are wrong by saying that coal to oil should not be tried. Coal to oil should be massively implemented as China and India are doing.

Yes coal to oil liquefaction would lower oil prices in the near future or even instantly because investors would see the U.S. is willing to do something.

coal to oil liquefaction would lower oil prices in the near future or even instantly

Then sanity would return as investors find out how much these plants cost and how long they take to build.

I’ve driven the Autobahns. They are fantastic!...............

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

"how long they take to build."

Read someplace that the Canadians have a company that built a 'nuke lee ir' reactor in four years.....Don't know if they ever 'turned it on'....

So I guess all the coal to oil liquefaction plants India and China are building are just bad investments? I don’t think so.

The U.S. government is wasting 3.2 trillion dollars annually. What the government gave a lot of that money back to investors? Would they have money to build these plants then? Yes.

I didn’t say coal to oil liquefaction was the only solution either. All our resources should be used including, more domestic oil drilling, oil shale, oil sands in Canada, building of nuclear power plants to power electric cars and everything else, natural gas fueled cars, fuel cells etc.

So I guess all the coal to oil liquefaction plants India and China are building are just bad investments? I don’t think so.

The U.S. government is wasting 3.2 trillion dollars annually. What if the government gave a lot of that money back to investors? Would they have money to build these plants then? Yes.

I didn’t say coal to oil liquefaction was the only solution either. All our resources should be used including, more domestic oil drilling, oil shale, oil sands in Canada, building of nuclear power plants to power electric cars and everything else, natural gas fueled cars, fuel cells etc.

“With current levels of use, American coal reserves, which are the richest in the world, would be exhausted in 250 years. Doubling coal extraction to feed liquid coal plants would give the nation 125 years to develop reliable renewable energy sources”.....
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08175/891993-28.stm

My point is that even without using the coal to produce gasoline, the price of coal is skyrocketing right now. And we’re expecting to add a bunch of power plants over the next several years, which is going to make the problem even worse. There is already a big cost increase in the price of electricity caused by increased coal prices, which is currently working its way thru the system, and will likely come to a boil next year. Most of our electricity is regulated, so the price doesn’t shoot up immediately after the cost of coal goes up, but the regulators will eventually have to increase prices in order to keep pace with costs. By this time next year, the number one complaint will not be the cost of gasoline, but rather the cost of electricity. So you’re going to add more demand onto that?

The solution to the gasoline problem is not to use coal, but rather to drill.

Sorry Ditto, not true. In California we get over half of our electricity from Natural Gas and they are Baseline Plants. For all of California's boasting about energy policy this is just about the stupidest policy imaginable. We do this because it is the only way we can meet clean air requirements. We have a moratorium on Nuclear Power Plants from the era of the quantum Moron Governor Moonbeam (now AG) so this is the policy. Madness! Absolute Madness! We need the Nukes ASAP!

Democrats won’t allow oil drilling or coal mining. That is what is causing price increases , a shortage of supply.

If companies are allowed to drill more and mine for coal more than prices will go down in both. And if in addition to oil and coal companies are allowed to use coal to oil, natural gas, nuclear, fuel cells etc.

The environmentalist movement and Democrat party has to be stopped first or we will all be riding bicycle and in the dark soon. That is if we can afford to buy a bicycle in the depression the Democrats are driving us into.

“Doubling coal extraction to feed liquid coal plants would give the nation 125 years”

Well, yeah, that seems pretty obvious, if we are starting with 250 years supply. And quintupling it would leave 50 years. All of that is assuming, of course, that we don’t increase our consumption of coal used in the production of electricity over the next 50 years.

The question is how much of the coal would you have to use in order to produce a meaningful dent in the gasoline shortage. It doesn’t say. My suspicion is that it would be a whole lot more than you think. We use a whole lot more gasoline than we do coal in this country. I suspect that doubling coal production would do very little to increase the supply of gasoline.

Let me just point out that the loonies told us that using subsidized corn to produce ethanol would solve our gasoline problems. Instead, their plan gave us a shortage of corn, and our gasoline problem is worse than ever. I am content to let the market decide whether we get our gasoline from oil or from coal. Government bureaucrats should have no role in the process, other than to do their best to let private industry have access to whatever resources they need.

More base load capacity could easily be absorbed in various ways. For instance, if a major market develops for plug-in-hybrid cars, or all-electric cars, owners would be encouraged to recharge them during off-peak hours. That would require smart meters — but, those could be used to encourage more time-shifting of demand (from air conditioners to water heaters, etc.).

Even today's dumb grid can be used to time-shift loads — by transmitting any surplus power to a different time-zone, where loads are peaking.

If the base load is increased, without an increase in peak-loading — that would also result in smaller requirements for expensive peak load generators. (Raise the level of the base & the peak isn't as much above the base any more.)

The U.S. does use a lot of coal. Most of the electricity the U.S. uses is from Coal. If more nuclear plants are built then coal could be used almost exclusively for coal to oil.

Coal to oil would only need to replace a small percentage of the oil the U.S. uses to lower prices because there is more oil drilling to be done, nuclear, natural gas, oil shale etc.

I’m just saying that this coal to oil shouldn’t be discounted so rapidly but that other people should be told about it.

I’m for the government being reduced so that there is more investment capital and for the repeal of restrictions on oil drilling and coal mining, and for the repeal regulations and environmental laws

Proved recoverable coal reserves at end-2006 [million tonnes (teragrams)]

Country	Bituminous & anthracite	SubBituminous & lignite	TOTAL	Share
USA	111,338	135,305	246,643	27.1
Russia	49,088	107,922	157,010	17.3
China	62,200	52,300	114,500	12.6
India	90,085	2,360	92,445	10.2
Australia	38,600	39,900	78,500	8.6
South Africa	48,750	0	48,750	5.4
Ukraine	16,274	17,879	34,153	3.8
Kazakhstan	28,151	3,128	31,279	3.4
Poland	14,000	0	14,000	1.5
Brazil	0	10,113	10,113	1.1
Germany	183	6,556	6,739	0.7
Colombia	6,230	381	6,611	0.7
Canada	3,471	3,107	6,578	0.7
Czech Republic	2,094	3,458	5,552	0.6
Indonesia	740	4,228	4,968	0.5
Turkey	278	3,908	4,186	0.5
Greece	0	3,900	3,900	0.4
Hungary	198	3,159	3,357	0.4
Pakistan	0	3,050	3,050	0.3
Bulgaria	4	2,183	2,187	0.2
Thailand	0	1,354	1,354	0.1
North Korea	300	300	600	0.1
New Zealand	33	538	571	0.1
Spain	200	330	530	0.1
Zimbabwe	502	0	502	0.1
Romania	22	472	494	0.1
Venezuela	479	0	479	0.1
TOTAL	478,771	430,293	909,064	100.0

 

 

• Peat, considered to be a precursor of coal. It has industrial importance as a fuel in some countries, for example, Ireland and Finland.
   

• Lignite, also referred to as brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal and used almost exclusively as fuel for steam-electric power generation. Jet is a compact form of lignite that is sometimes polished and has been used as an ornamental stone since the Iron Age.
   

• Sub-bituminous coal, whose properties range from those of lignite to those of bituminous coal and are used primarily as fuel for steam-electric power generation. Additionally, it is an important source of light aromatic hydrocarbons for the chemical synthesis industry.
   

• Bituminous coal, a dense mineral, black but sometimes dark brown, often with well-defined bands of bright and dull material, used primarily as fuel in steam-electric power generation, with substantial quantities also used for heat and power applications in manufacturing and to make coke.
   

• Anthracite, the highest rank; a harder, glossy, black coal used primarily for residential and commercial space heating. It may be divided further in to metamorphically altered bituminous coal and petrified oil, as from the deposits in Pennsylvania.

"Fantastic" Autobahns, roger!! What a gas (no pun intended) to know that the speed limit was how fast your vehicle would go!!

Some of the fun has gone out of the Autobahns, as I understand it; I've been told by folks who have lived there more recently than I (which was "back in the day" - HA!) they are imposing speed limits in many places.....shucks!

I'll never forget screaming (the engine was, literally, "screaming") along in my 225 cu in slant six Dodge at a mighty 110 mph (wouldn't go any faster, darn it!) and being passed by (1) a BMW 3.0 CSI (logo on right side of trunk lid), (2) one car-length behind the BMW a Nissan 240Z and (3) two carlengths behing the "Z" a four-door Mercedes (logo on LEFT side of trunk lid). These cars passed SO quickly that I didn't have time to scan to the side of the Mercedes trunk lid to see what model it was.

I was IMPRESSED!!!

“Bio-Fuels- NO! Unless we can made cellulosic ethanol work with bio material NOT used for food”

You are not very well versed on the subject of Bio-Fuels.

Virtually any bio-mass (wood, switch grass, miscanthus, sorghum, etc) can be converted into a wide variety of solids(wood pellets, charcoal, etc), liquids (bio-oil, bio-diesel, kerosene, etc) and gases (producer gas, synthesis gas, methane, etc.)

This is all being done, now today although much of it is in the prototype or pilot production stages in the US.

I am working right on a bio-mass gasifier which can convert any of the biomass types above in to producer gas and charcoal.

Googling “biomass gasification” returns 203,000 items.

You really need to read up.

Lurking’

Sorry Ditto, not true.

Here's the stats

In the first place, California imports over 21% of electricity (hydro from the Pacific NW and Coal/Nuclear from Arizona and Nevada.

Of the 78% generated in state, 41% is natural gas fired or approx 30% of the total generation consumed in California -- national average for gas is 15-20% This is why California's electric rates are sky high. Natural gas is expensive and getting more so. The more you generate with it, the higher your bills will be.

I did not say that natural gas could not be used for baseload. I said it is mostly used for peaking plants because it is so expensive. A utility only wants to burn that gas when it absolutly needs to meet peak demand.

Burning it to make electricity is foolish. Burning it as baseload is just plain idiotic.

I was there (Berlin) in 2000 and again in 2001. They have speed limits in the metro areas, for obvious reasons, but once outside the city limits, it’s pedal to the metal..............

I should have added something to my # 38.

Coal-to-oil (or oil shale to oil, or oil sands to oil) processes require copious amounts of hydrogen. Off-peak electricity from nuclear plants could be used to produce this hydrogen. Even better, pebble-bed reactors can produce hydrogen by directly cracking water molecules at high temperature.

Here in Canada, a lot of electricity is used to refine bauxite into aluminum.

If there's a surplus of cheap electricity anywhere (even if only for a few hours every day) someone will figure out how to use it up.

Utilities would love to shave peaks. Their ideal would be a flat demand curve but that is never going to happen.

The Nazi war machine ran on coal from 1943-45. Avgas, jet fuel, diesel, gasoline and natural gas was produced. The plans were captured a wars end and was returned to the Us where they sat in archives at Texas A&M.

In the early 70s they were resurrected because the US/Isreal alliance had pissed off the Arabs and OPEC began to punish US! As oil prices rose to,GASP $11 a barrel, entrepreneurs put up the venture capital to build seven plants in North Dakota to produce natural gas and gasoline.

The first plant came on line in 1981. When its success was proven those evil OPEC folks reduced the price of crude oil to ,GULP, $7.00 per barrel.

My nephew graduated form University of North Dakota as a 4.0 Chem eng and went to work for this plant. As the junior eng he was put in charge of stack discharges to ensure that what went up the stack met environmental standards. His job changed as the stacks became a profit center!!!

Nitrous oxide is sold to fertilizer companies. Hydrogen, helium and other rare gases are sold to industrial concerns and the CO2 is sequestered in two main manners. A pipeline delivers to CO2 to the Canadian oil company in Manitoba where it is pumped into the ground as a secondary oil recovery tool. The rest is Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola and it is temporarily seqestered in our lower GI tract.

The proper development of this resource has been delayed for

27 Years!

Richard Bajura, director of the National Research Center for Coal and Energy at West Virginia University, said liquid coal could be produced for $60 to $70 a barrel.

But the $60 $70 per barrel price is pretty good if this is an end product.

OK so I was wrong about the % of natural gas we use for electricity in California. My understanding is that more Natural Gas plants are in the works. Madness! I was quoting a radio talk show host who is usually very accurate with his statistics. However there is no disagreement between us about the stupidity of using natural gas for electricity.

I don’t mind if there is ethanol made, I just don’t want it mandated to be bought or to be subsidized in any form.