Fischer_Throupch for Synthetic Oil

Environmentally No - Just replacing one fossil fuel with another.

Security of supply. Only partially. In SA we don't have much oil

SASOL are using the (improved) method to produce petroleum products from coal to lessen our dependency on oil.

Hi Hendrix,

Is it true that Sasol is really a total fuel supplier for SA, or is some oil imported. What does it cost per gallon or liter?

Wikipedia says that Sasol is going global, and we definitely need to stop importing Foriegn Oil to the US. Was thinking that an industry like Sasol would stop the flow of $$$$, and replace needed middle-income jobs in America.

WE are the Saudia Arabia of Coal, and we have plenty of CH4. I work for Pickens Plan, and we (the US) want to get transportation off imported oil. Eventually we will go more to electric hybrid to clean up the CO2.

Thanks

DRS

Fischer-Tropsch.

Government statistics are available if you Google them I guess, but very roughly SA refines about 500 000 barrels/day of crude and "Sasol" can produce about another 180 000 from coal.

Conventional wisdom is that coal to liquids becomes economic at around 30 USD/barrel, but these plants are expensive.

Sasol is involved in Qatar and China amongst others. I have not researched the figures, but my understanding is that there are greater known coal reserves than there are oil reserves and an awful lot of the coal is in China and the USA.

Does not solve the energy problem but could be a solution to these two countries dependence on imported energy.

There is a company operating a pilot plant near Chinchilla (Queensland, Australia) where they gasify the coal in situ. The gas is then converted to oil via Fischer-Tropsch process. They claim a breakeven of $25 a barrel. I think they are talking A$, but I'm not sure. Sorry, I have lost the reference to their web site.

There are huge coal deposits around the world and this method could provide our liquid fuel requirements until the required breakthroughs are made in storing electricity to enable transport to be weaned off liquid fuels.

The other things needed long term are cheaper nuclear fission power as a medium term solution to power needs and eventually fission for long term supply.

Am I dreaming too much here?

I'm not unduly worried about the global warming aspects of more CO2 production. Historically, we are not far away from entering the cycle of becoming concerned about the imminent disaster of another ice age; then about 30-40 years after that global warming will be the potential disaster of choice. In each case, the scientific community will be almost unanimous about the impending result, unless we change our ways.

Please excuse my cynicism. I shall now cease raving and return to my padded cell.