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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Kelly Anderson<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, May 11, 2013 4:56 PM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Coal Gasification and CO2 (was Re: Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020?)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Ja, what I meant was use wind and ground based solar as an energy input to convert coal to Diesel and octane. The plant you cite burns coal to make the power to convert coal to liquids. This is a huge waste of coal. When you have solar and wind power available, use that power to drive the coal conversion.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>I'm not a great chemist, and the chemical composition of coal is very complex, but my understanding of it is that to convert the carbon chains in the coal to octane, you have to release carbon dioxide. This isn't from the burning of the coal itself, but as a side effect of the conversion. I could be wrong, but no matter the energy source, using the Fischer–Tropsch process or similar, you would always release large amounts of CO2. I would love to be wrong about this. Any chemistry gurus out there?<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>-Kelly<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Kelly, the easy way to do this kind of analysis is to look at the energy content of 96 grams of carbon (from coal) vs 116 grams of octane, which is how much octane could theoretically be synthesized with the 96 grams of carbon. Then you must make up the energy difference by some means, and you need to supply the hydrogen by splitting water molecules. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Thought experiment: imagine you have an unlimited supply of cheap electrical power that you can’t really use, and a pile of coal, and that you need to make octane from the coal. The answer is to use the Fischer Tropsch process. The South African plant burns coal to make the power the traditional way with a coal fired Rankine cycle, then uses the power to convert coal to liquid fuels. This uses a lot of coal to make just a little Diesel and octane. If you had a lot of wind and solar power, and you were using the FT process primarily as a load leveler and as a means of energy storage, you get something like the thought experiment I proposed: when you are making more energy than you can use or ship elsewhere, that energy becomes practically free. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I have seen the Columbia Gorge when the wind was howling, the wind turbines practically spinning off their axles, the transmission cables smoking, and just no way to use all the excess power. If we take some of the energy now, when it is plentiful and cheap, use it to build ground based (and possibly space based) solar, nukes, and plenty of wind turbines, then we will have enough later as oil gradually diminishes to convert natural gas from fracking, coal and biomass into liquid fuels.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>What this does is makes the FT process a means of load leveling rather than an energy source. The problem with a lot of the renewables is in load leveling, since the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. If we use it while the wind is howling to make Diesel, then we have the option to crank up Diesel generators quickly when it is needed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>If we use wind and GB solar to convert coal to Diesel, the factory will have inputs of water, coal and electric energy, and have outputs of octane and oxygen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>