Converting Montana coal to oil?
polycounter lvl 18
I'm not sure if this has already been posted, but I'm posting it anyway because I find it interesting. I was almost going to post it in the "Oilstorm" thread, but I figured maybe it deserves it's own thread.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050825/pl_nm/energy_montana_dc
Basically (for those who don't want to read the whole article) he says he can convert Montana's massive coal reserves into gasoline (petrol for you limeys), diesel and jet fuel using a technique developed by the Germans in 1923 and used by the Nazis during Dubya Dubya Two. The method wasn't economically viable in the past when oil was below $30, but with a barrel of crude costing nearly $70 today, there's a huge benefit in using this technique. He says he can supply the entire US for the next 40 years without causing any environmental damage at about a dollar per gallon (I believe the $1 a gallon would be the consumer price). "We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now."
I think this sounds like a very good idea.
This governor is one of the few politicians for whom I actually have some respect. I heard him speak on a talk-radio show awhile back (he didn't mention anything about converting coal to oil then), and he just seems like a cool, well-traveled and intelligent guy. He's a real cowboy who used to make a living as a cattle rancher (unlike a certain politician who owns a fake ranch and likes to pretend to be a hick). He's a liberal democrat who was elected (and very popular) in an overwhelmingly red state, so that should tell you that he's doing something right.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050825/pl_nm/energy_montana_dc
Basically (for those who don't want to read the whole article) he says he can convert Montana's massive coal reserves into gasoline (petrol for you limeys), diesel and jet fuel using a technique developed by the Germans in 1923 and used by the Nazis during Dubya Dubya Two. The method wasn't economically viable in the past when oil was below $30, but with a barrel of crude costing nearly $70 today, there's a huge benefit in using this technique. He says he can supply the entire US for the next 40 years without causing any environmental damage at about a dollar per gallon (I believe the $1 a gallon would be the consumer price). "We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now."
I think this sounds like a very good idea.
This governor is one of the few politicians for whom I actually have some respect. I heard him speak on a talk-radio show awhile back (he didn't mention anything about converting coal to oil then), and he just seems like a cool, well-traveled and intelligent guy. He's a real cowboy who used to make a living as a cattle rancher (unlike a certain politician who owns a fake ranch and likes to pretend to be a hick). He's a liberal democrat who was elected (and very popular) in an overwhelmingly red state, so that should tell you that he's doing something right.
Replies
but it is just a temporary solution to a major issue. we still need an alternative to oil/coal. ;\
and if this does take off i can see a future president in the making
j/k aside, it is a good idea, but only if the time is used to get alternatives ready, otherwise it will simply move the problem 40 years into the future.
But to be honest I really don't see the problem the americans have with the oil prices. You cut easily cut back the use down to european levels, with is a massive amount (and we europeans still waste tons of it), and the end customer price is still laughable in the US.
Here in Germany the gas price just hit 1.43 for a liter (which is approximatly $1.80 for a 1/4 gallon if I remember correctly).
However that does not excuse the ridiculous abundance of motor vehicles with terrible fuel consumption. It's a kind of cause and effect thing - fuel prices are lower, so people don't see why they need to worry about good MPG so much. I think on average, European vehicles get a better MPG than American vehicles. It'd be interesting to see some sort of statistics on that, maybe I'll have a look later.
This is merely a different method.
Anyway, isn't the world set to run out of oil in less than a few hundred years anyway?
I'd like, no love this country to become energy independent again.
I'm thinking of getting a bike to ride to work but I need to find a safe route to ride, the roads aren't bike friendly here.
I think there are probably reasons that coal liquefaction didn't take off as a technology right after the Germans developed it. It's probably a lot like the idea that oil shale can be converted into usable petroleum, an idea that gets reinvested in every 20 years or so, but always ends in everyone involved going bust. Good luck, Montana!
/jzero
Anyway I believe the answer is right overhead, we are grossly under utilizing the energy we receive from the sun.
All we need to do is collect it. The big advance needed is batteries. Batteries suck right now but then they havent needed to be very good before now. If we had efficient quick-charging high-powered batteries there isnt anything we couldn't power with them.
If we had efficient quick-charging high-powered batteries there isnt anything we couldn't power with them.
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Could you power airliners with them?
[edit] I forgot to mention that I think the concerns that this would only serve to reinforce our dependency on oil are valid, but I don't think the answer is to allow our economy to fall to shambles in a hope that we'll be forced into finding alternatives. I don't believe throwing a kid in a lake and telling him to "swim or drown" is the best way to teach him to swim.
oh well, its a pipe dream! ;D
That's what fuel cells are for.
This is a tough problem.
Could you power airliners with them?
[/ QUOTE ] Not the current engines but yes you could.
Some estimates say only 40 years of oil are left, and it's all downhill. This new method states it will help us for the next 40 years.
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I hear this all the time, and I really want to know where this actual data is coming from? I'm not trying to insult you, but I'm genuinely curious.
The world has plenty of oil according to this guy:
http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/3unconventional.html
What nobody has brought up is the fact that most all plastics are made from types of oil. Lubricants come from oil. Not just gasoline/petrolium.
This is a tough problem.
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Good point. In fact, I think a majority of oil consumption goes to things other than fuels. Like you already mentioned: plastics, lubricants... and then there are things like synthetic materials for clothes, solvents, insecticides, car tires, and so on and so on.
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Could you power airliners with them?
[/ QUOTE ] Not the current engines but yes you could.
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I'm not so sure about that. I just can't imagine an electric motor being able to produce the immense about of thrust that is generated by a gas-turbine engine. If it were possible it would have to be a prop plane, and I imagine the amount of batteries (even if we developed super-efficient batteries) would need to be quiet excessive in order to give the aircraft an inter-continental range.
The most thrust a plane needs is during takeoff where the power of an electric motor still can't touch the power of a combustion engine (although they are getting close). Maybe a set of assist jets could help get it up to altitude, then the rest of the trip is mostly maintaining and gliding..
Batteries still don't come close to storing the potential energy that petroleum does though. They would have to get several orders of magnitude more efficient to be light enough.
edit: well maybe 'an' order of magnitude. Electrics get about an 80-mile range max and gasoline/diesel get about 300
Nuclear power in the home! that's the 60's vision we need!
Didn't say a jet engine. It'd have to be some sort of prop but really you have no choice but to slow down a bit once the fuel is gone. As for take off? How about an array of advanced transformers? That'd give you a nice power boost. Jets are very fast yes, but props can generate more than enough power to get a modern jumbo jet fuesalage off the ground.
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um, not really, no.
Shut up while you are still not a compete tool.
C-130
http://www-astro.lbl.gov/~jodi/johnbear/sp/flights.html
It is an old technology, with which we have abundant experience.
While electric motors & batteries of one sort or another have been around for ages, they really havent been taken seriously for transportation because it hasn't been necessary. We had fossil fuel powered vehicles.
The simple fact is there are other alternative sources of energy, methods of propulsion & ways to get various "oils".
Vegetable matter produces oils that can be processed to create a viable substitute for the previous black crudes.
We will get by. We will adapt. As always, we'll discover something new, revolutionary & better in the process.
I think.
Fuck you.
C-130
http://www-astro.lbl.gov/~jodi/johnbear/sp/flights.html
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Have you ever been in a C-130 while in flight. Do you understand that the C-130 is a 50 year old aircraft, or that it is designed for short take off and landing, etc, etc, etc.
You lose, good day sir.
Fuck you.
C-130
http://www-astro.lbl.gov/~jodi/johnbear/sp/flights.html
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Like I said, powering a prop with an electric motor isn't really the problem, getting power to those motors is the problem. For the most efficient electric cars, it takes about 600 lbs of batteries to replace the power and range of 1 gallon of gasoline (which weighs about 6 lbs). Now, keep in mind that the fuel capacity of a normal C130 is somewhere between 20 and 30 tons, which would require 3,000 tons of batteries to achieve the same power with electric motors. Yeah, good luck getting that thing off the ground, it would have the weight/lift ratio of a damned elephant (Dumbo excluded
Seriously, Weiser_Cain, stop trying to justify electric motor powered prop passenger planes, it's like creationalism and free enegry, no matter how much you huff and puff, slam your fists and incorrectly cite references it's never going to fly.
Even that, jet fuel is extremely cheap, you could piss into the fuel tank and it wouldn't have much adverse effect. :P
Apparently the V2 was fueled with alcohol made from potatoes (vodka?). No oil required.
*Clean burning
*Renewable by the sun basically
*I always hear farmers are going out of business
*Developer farm land is in better shape than oil land
*The US has more farm land than oil
It always amazes me how we hear about "new techiniques/techonolgies" yet we rarely see them become anything. Makes me wonder if special interest groups are able to stop them somehow.
"It always amazes me how we hear about "new techiniques/techonolgies" yet we rarely see them become anything. Makes me wonder if special interest groups are able to stop them somehow."
What is truly amazing is that the internal combustion engine and the battery are 19th century tech!
Way back I read an article about using flywheels for storage...
I've been wondering the same. I read an article about the corn produced gasonline back when we were paying $1.80 (you know, a couple months ago).
It always amazes me how we hear about "new techiniques/techonolgies" yet we rarely see them become anything. Makes me wonder if special interest groups are able to stop them somehow.
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this is because the "big oil" companies that are raking a profit from this whole thing have enough money to pay off the inventors of said technologies to the point where they are set for life even if gas were to run out.. as long as there IS oil, this will remain true. too many people have too much money invested to allow something such as "cheap energy" to exist until its tottally and completely too late.
the same thing goes for prescription drugs, the drug companies arent researching ways to curepeople, only to make their symptoms go away to the point where if they go off the drugs they are immediately sick again. thats why cancer and aids will never be cured until some government steps in and does it themselves instead of leaving it up to corporate peoples whose only interest is, you guessed it.. making money, not making people healthy.
J
What is truly amazing is that the internal combustion engine and the battery are 19th century tech!
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actually the battery was first made back thousands of years ago. they found a clay jar with a copper wrapped rod that if filled with grape juice it would produce an electric charge.
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J
What is truly amazing is that the internal combustion engine and the battery are 19th century tech!
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actually the battery was first made back thousands of years ago. they found a clay jar with a copper wrapped rod that if filled with grape juice it would produce an electric charge.
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You saw that on mythbusters, didnt you?
Anyway, no one is sure, not to mention it had the wrong metals for a battery.
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There is some evidencein the form of the Baghdad Batteries from sometime between 250 BCE and 640 CE (while Baghdad was under Parthian and Sassanian dynasties of ancient Persia) of galvanic cells having been used in ancient times. Such ancient knowledge in the history of electricity bears no known continuous relationship to the development of modern batteries. The conjecture that these devices had an electrical function, while plausible, remains unproven, as with devices discovered in Egyptian digs that are alleged to be batteries as well.
In 1748, Benjamin Franklin coined the term battery to describe the simple capacitor he experimented with, which was an array of charged glass plates. He adapted the word from its earlier sense meaning a beating, which is what an electric shock from the apparatus felt like. In those days, the entertaining effect of an electric shock was one of the few uses of the technology. Other experimenters made batteries from a number of Leyden jars connected in parallel. The definition was later widened to include an array of electrochemical cells or capacitors. The Voltaic pile was a chemical battery developed by the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta in 1800. Volta researched the effects which different metals produced when exposed to salt water. In 1801, Volta demonstrated the Voltaic cell to Napoleon Bonaparte (who later ennobled him for his discoveries). The discoverer of biological electricity Luigi Galvani, researched the same effect with two pieces of the same metal exposed to salt water.
The scientific community at this time called this battery a pile, accumulator, because it held charge, or artificial electrical organ. Some early battery researchers called the device a gravity cell because gravity kept the two sulfates separated. The name crowfoot cell was also commonly used because of the shape of the zinc electrode used in the batteries.
In 1800, William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle used a battery to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen. Sir Humphry Davy researched this chemical effect at the same time. Davy researched the decomposition of substances (called electrolysis). In 1813, he constructed a 2,000-plate paired battery in the basement of Britain's Royal Society, covering 889 ft² (83 m²). Through this experiment, Davy deduced that electrolysis was the action in the voltaic pile that produced electricity. In 1820, the British researcher John Frederic Daniell improved the voltaic cell. The Daniell cell consisted of copper and zinc plates and copper and zinc sulfates. It was used to operate telegraphs and doorbells. Between 1832 and 1834, Michael Faraday conducted experiments with a ferrite ring, a galvanometer, and a connected battery. When the battery was connected or disconnected, the galvanometer deflected. Faraday also developed the principle of ionic mobility in chemical reactions of batteries. In 1839, William Robert Grove developed the first fuel cell, which produced electrical energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen. Grove developed another form the electric cell using zinc and platinum electrodes. These electrodes were exposed to two acids separated by a diaphragm.
In the 1860s, Georges Leclanché of France developed a carbon-zinc battery. It was a wet cell, with electrodes plunged into a body of electrolyte fluid. It was rugged, manufactured easily, and had a decent shelf life. An improved version called a dry cell was later made by sealing the cell and changing the fluid electrolyte to a wet paste. The Leclanché cell is a type of primary (non-rechargeable) battery. In the 1860s, Raymond Gaston Plant invented the lead-acid battery. He immersed two thin solid lead plates separated by rubber sheets in a dilute sulfuric acid solution to make a secondary (rechargeable) battery. The original invention had a short shelf life, though. Around 1881, Émile Alphonse Faure, with his colleagues, developed batteries using a mixture of lead oxides for the positive plate electrolyte. These had faster reactions and higher efficiency. In 1878, the air cell battery was developed. In 1897, Nikola Tesla researched a lightweight carbide cell and a oxygen-hydrogen storage cell. In 1898 Nathan Stubblefield received approval for a battery patent (US600457): this electrolytic coil patent is referred to as an "earth battery".
In 1900, Thomas Edison developed the nickel storage battery. In 1905, Edison developed the nickel-iron battery. Like all electrochemical cells, Edison's produced a current of electrons that flowed only in one direction, known as direct current. In World War II, Samuel Ruben and Philip Rogers Mallory developed the mercury cell. In the 1950s, Russell S. Ohl developed a wafer of silicon that produced free electrons. In the 1950s, Ruben improved the alkaline manganese battery. In 1954, Gerald L. Pearson, Daryl M. Chapin, and Calvin S. Fuller produced an array of several such wafers, making the first solar battery or solar cell. In 1956, Francis Thomas Bacon developed the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell. In 1959, Lewis Urry developed the small alkaline battery at the Eveready Battery Company laboratory in Parma, Ohio. In the 1960s, German researchers invented a gel-type electrolyte lead-acid battery. Duracell was formed in 1964.
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You saw that on mythbusters, didnt you?
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actually i saw it on Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious Universe or one of those shows over 10 years ago