On Mar 18, 5:11*am, "Eisboch" wrote:
On-topic, since the price and availability of fuel affects boating.

I've been reading about alternative energy sources lately, including solar,
wind, geothermal, etc. *All have levels of promise but none will come close
to satisfying energy needs in the short or long term.

Meanwhile, the US has the world's largest supply of coal in various forms.
Coal can be processed into oil. *It's called "synthetic oil" because it's
not liquid in it's natural state but when processed, it is virtually
indistinguishable from high grade oil.

Estimates vary, but it is believed that there is at least an 80 year supply
of oil obtainable from coal if it supplied all of our energy needs at
current rates. *It would last much longer when supplemented by conventional
oil reserves, solar and wind energy.

The process to convert coal to oil becomes economically justified when
regular oil prices exceed $35 per barrel.
China is busy building several coal to oil conversion plants.

Why isn't this technology and resource being tapped into in the US?

Eisboch


Primary issues as I see them.

The plants are expensive to build, might as well build nuke plant and
hydrolysis plants to change sea water to hydrogen & oxygen for fuel
cell use whose byproduct is fresh water which we are short of.

Still hydrocarbon fuel with the standard greenhouse gas as well as
other NOx, sufuric acid, nitric acid....products of combustion.

The process of converting the coal to oil is also very energy
intensive. Hitler ran his war machine one coal derived oil because it
was all he had access to, not because it was inexpensive or efficient.

The process leaves large quantities of nasty & toxic waste, including
radioactive waste (most all coal is low grade radioactive)

Coal mining itself is a dirty process with large amounts of
environmentally damaging waste and requires large slurry lakes. These
require damms which have collapsed in the past causing major
tragedies. We barely keep this under control at current levels of
production. Now lets say we increase it ten fold....

The best direction we have to go now is hydrogen which can only be
efficiently and economically produced using nuclear energy. It will
produce the minimum amount of waste which can be reprocessed and
disposed of on site by drilling holes to 30,000' (we do this right now
for deep oil and gas) stacking 10,000' of waste into it, cap with
1000' of leaded concrete and back fill with dirt.

wrote in message
...
On Mar 18, 5:11 am, "Eisboch" wrote:
On-topic, since the price and availability of fuel affects boating.

I've been reading about alternative energy sources lately, including
solar,
wind, geothermal, etc. All have levels of promise but none will come close
to satisfying energy needs in the short or long term.

Meanwhile, the US has the world's largest supply of coal in various forms.
Coal can be processed into oil. It's called "synthetic oil" because it's
not liquid in it's natural state but when processed, it is virtually
indistinguishable from high grade oil.

Estimates vary, but it is believed that there is at least an 80 year
supply
of oil obtainable from coal if it supplied all of our energy needs at
current rates. It would last much longer when supplemented by conventional
oil reserves, solar and wind energy.

The process to convert coal to oil becomes economically justified when
regular oil prices exceed $35 per barrel.
China is busy building several coal to oil conversion plants.

Why isn't this technology and resource being tapped into in the US?

Eisboch


Primary issues as I see them.

The plants are expensive to build, might as well build nuke plant and
hydrolysis plants to change sea water to hydrogen & oxygen for fuel
cell use whose byproduct is fresh water which we are short of.

Still hydrocarbon fuel with the standard greenhouse gas as well as
other NOx, sufuric acid, nitric acid....products of combustion.

The process of converting the coal to oil is also very energy
intensive. Hitler ran his war machine one coal derived oil because it
was all he had access to, not because it was inexpensive or efficient.

The process leaves large quantities of nasty & toxic waste, including
radioactive waste (most all coal is low grade radioactive)

Coal mining itself is a dirty process with large amounts of
environmentally damaging waste and requires large slurry lakes. These
require damms which have collapsed in the past causing major
tragedies. We barely keep this under control at current levels of
production. Now lets say we increase it ten fold....

The best direction we have to go now is hydrogen which can only be
efficiently and economically produced using nuclear energy. It will
produce the minimum amount of waste which can be reprocessed and
disposed of on site by drilling holes to 30,000' (we do this right now
for deep oil and gas) stacking 10,000' of waste into it, cap with
1000' of leaded concrete and back fill with dirt.



Henning .... is that you?

Eisboch

On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:33:39 -0500, D-unit wrote:


"Bill Clinton, by executive edict, declared 1.7 million acres of Utah to
be a national monument. Under those acres are the largest known
deposit-more than 60 billion tons-of low-sulfur, clean-burning coal. The
second largest deposit, the value of which rose because of Clinton's
action locking up an alternative supply, is in Indonesia and is owned by
a member of the Indonesian Riady family, of fragrant memory, which was
generous to Clinton's 1992 campaign."


-George Will

Full article he

http://www.newsweek.com/id/107575/page/2


db

You might want to look at what Will thinks should be a coal mine.

http://www.utah.com/nationalsites/grand_staircase.htm

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:33:39 -0500, D-unit wrote:


"Bill Clinton, by executive edict, declared 1.7 million acres of Utah to
be a national monument. Under those acres are the largest known
deposit-more than 60 billion tons-of low-sulfur, clean-burning coal. The
second largest deposit, the value of which rose because of Clinton's
action locking up an alternative supply, is in Indonesia and is owned by
a member of the Indonesian Riady family, of fragrant memory, which was
generous to Clinton's 1992 campaign."


-George Will

Full article he

http://www.newsweek.com/id/107575/page/2


db

You might want to look at what Will thinks should be a coal mine.

http://www.utah.com/nationalsites/grand_staircase.htm


Maybe it's good that the guvmint thinks waterboarding is OK. Oh
George....come over here for a moment....

On Mar 18, 5:11*am, "Eisboch" wrote:
On-topic, since the price and availability of fuel affects boating.

I've been reading about alternative energy sources lately, including solar,
wind, geothermal, etc. *All have levels of promise but none will come close
to satisfying energy needs in the short or long term.

Meanwhile, the US has the world's largest supply of coal in various forms.
Coal can be processed into oil. *It's called "synthetic oil" because it's
not liquid in it's natural state but when processed, it is virtually
indistinguishable from high grade oil.

Estimates vary, but it is believed that there is at least an 80 year supply
of oil obtainable from coal if it supplied all of our energy needs at
current rates. *It would last much longer when supplemented by conventional
oil reserves, solar and wind energy.

The process to convert coal to oil becomes economically justified when
regular oil prices exceed $35 per barrel.
China is busy building several coal to oil conversion plants.

Why isn't this technology and resource being tapped into in the US?

Eisboch

Last time I heard that China has stopped their coal-to-oil projects --
probably has to do with this method is not efficient and has a lot of
downsides or something like that.

US may try planting sugar canes in wetland in Southern part of US to
convert sugar into ethanol. This will generate more energy than using
corns, and is supposed to be green-house-gas neutral. Of course, this
will have a large environmental impact.

Jay Chan

On Mar 19, 12:34*pm, "
wrote:
On Mar 18, 5:11*am, "Eisboch" wrote:





On-topic, since the price and availability of fuel affects boating.

I've been reading about alternative energy sources lately, including solar,
wind, geothermal, etc. *All have levels of promise but none will come close
to satisfying energy needs in the short or long term.

Meanwhile, the US has the world's largest supply of coal in various forms.
Coal can be processed into oil. *It's called "synthetic oil" because it's
not liquid in it's natural state but when processed, it is virtually
indistinguishable from high grade oil.

Estimates vary, but it is believed that there is at least an 80 year supply
of oil obtainable from coal if it supplied all of our energy needs at
current rates. *It would last much longer when supplemented by conventional
oil reserves, solar and wind energy.

The process to convert coal to oil becomes economically justified when
regular oil prices exceed $35 per barrel.
China is busy building several coal to oil conversion plants.

Why isn't this technology and resource being tapped into in the US?

Eisboch

Last time I heard that China has stopped their coal-to-oil projects --
probably has to do with this method is not efficient and has a lot of
downsides or something like that.

US may try planting sugar canes in wetland in Southern part of US to
convert sugar into ethanol. *This will generate more energy than using
corns, and is supposed to be green-house-gas neutral. *Of course, this
will have a large environmental impact.

Jay Chan- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The sugar cane industry in south Florida almost wiped out the
Everglades as we know it. If not for a smart few, the farming
practices would have completely ruined one of the most diverse and
ecologically important areas on earth.