Ultra Clean Fuels

penokee · Sep 27, 2005

Here's an interesting article on Ultra Clean Fuels.
penokee /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

http://www.ultracleanfuels.com/articles/barrons_091705.htm

sneaky_pete · Sep 28, 2005

I'm all for it, but calling anything to do with coal as "ultra clean" is misleading, in my opinion. The article says the process converts waste coal into Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide gases - CO being of course a deadly poison and the target of much of the last three decades of pollution control regulations.

MJB · Sep 28, 2005

If the goal is to release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as possible, coal liquifaction is the way to do it.

dmccarty · Sep 28, 2005

Sneaky pete,

Ya gots to keep reading. After converting the coal into Hydragen and Carbon monixide it is made it diesel. For a website trying to prompt a technology it should be alot clearer on what they are doing.

It sounds like they are promoting Gas to Liquid(GTL) production of fuel except they are calling it Coal to Liquid(CTL). I think the Germans did this back in WWII. Given todays high oil prices the process might make money. The GTL process needs oil at 20-25 dollars a barrel to be economically worth while.

Later,
Dan

sneaky_pete · Sep 28, 2005

( Ya gots to keep reading. After converting the coal into Hydragen and Carbon monixide it is made it diesel. For a website trying to prompt a technology it should be alot clearer on what they are doing.)

Agreed; I burrowed through several layers of pages on that web site and never did find out what they do with the CO. Thanks to Google, I finally found it here. The CO can't be used for fuel so it is converted to C02 using steam, producing massive amounts as MJB said. At least C02 is not posionous.

( It sounds like they are promoting Gas to Liquid(GTL) production of fuel except they are calling it Coal to Liquid(CTL). I think the Germans did this back in WWII.)

Actually, it's been done since 1813; they used to call it Town Gas or Manufactured Gas. Most all the gas lights in the world were fueled this way until natural gas became cheaply available as a by-product of crude oil production around 1940.

( Given todays high oil prices the process might make money. The GTL process needs oil at 20-25 dollars a barrel to be economically worth while.)

It ought to work then; no one knows for sure what oil prices will do, but I don't know of anyone in the business who believes that crude will ever be below $30/bbl again.

California · Sep 28, 2005

Something about that site looks like the work of the promoters who tout gold mines or whatever.

Barrons writes about opportunities for new investments, it's not a technology magazine.

There is little description of the technology, and a hint to 'invest now!' alongside other, influential investors. They boast they got special legislation passed to cover their startup costs with subsidies that would not be available to competitors. I hope I'm wrong ....