# Gasifying coal



## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Did anyone catch Montana's governor Brian Schweitzer (D) on 60 minutes last night? He wants get the ball rolling on converting Montana's coal reserves into diesel... something he called "gasifying coal." This process is new to me... anyone know more about it?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/ ... age2.shtml

Info on Scheitzer (and his republican lt. governor) at their website:

http://www.brianschweitzer.com/


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## adokken (Jan 28, 2003)

In North Dakota we have The Great Plains Synfuel Plant, The only commercial coal gasification plant in the United States. All the mined land is reclaimed to its original status and if anything is improved. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal in North Dakota Montana and Wyoming If we could get off the oil dictators we could make some progress. If my memory is correct this plant belonged to the Government and they were going to junk for probably for a penny on the dollar but fortunatly a group of Co-ops pooled their resources and bought it. Anyway its a great success story.


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## Lvn2Hnt (Feb 22, 2005)

seabass> currently, this would be a relatively new process attempted in North America. A few months ago, MT. GOV visited the Dakota Gasification Company's Synfuels Plant to better learn what processes we're working on there. If you want to know more about it I'd suggest hitting Basin Electric's Web site at http://www.basinelectric.com or Dakota Gas's website at http://www.dakotagas.com

addoken> Dakota Gas/Great Plains Synfuels Plant is a subsidiary of Basin Electric Power Cooperative.


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## nickle ditch (Aug 26, 2002)

The CO2 produced by the plant is being piped up here. It's being bought by a couple of Canadian oil companies and injected into the formations to push out more oil. It's increased the field life of the patch i'm working in by at least twentyfive years.


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## Invector (Jan 13, 2006)

This too intrest me. As my old college geology book says coal is formed form then any living tissue is exposed to large amounts of pressure for long periods. That is why ND and MT has lots of coal due to the fact we use to be shore line and forest way back in time. Oil is developed by natural processes from the earth. It intrests me how coal could be used to produce diesel fuel.


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## ND decoy (Feb 1, 2003)

I do alot of work with coal companies and power plants. The next generation of technoligy that is being used in these mines and plants is very good. DGC is making a good profit off of there Co2 pipe line and also turning anoth byproduct into daksul 45 (a fertilizer). The power plants have developed some real good use for fly ash. IT has been used in concrete for along time to add strength to it but now the coal creek station (underwood) has developed a product by using pressed fly ash that can bee used in building. You can hammer, drill, and cut it like wood and it is vert strong and fire proof.

And now the coal mines are starting to go after the 3rd seem of coal. Which they never have before. Each seem is about 60-80 feet deep. So now if the go after the third seem that is going deep. Like the man said we are the Saudi Arabia of coal.

Didn't mean to make this sound like a commercial.


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## adokken (Jan 28, 2003)

I would like to live long enough to see us completly energy independent.
Americans are smart people and we could of been a lot further along in energy independence if it was not for big oils greed.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

I hope you do live long enough to see that also :beer: and a lot longer afterwards.

But its not greed, its basic economics we demand the cheapest source of fuel and world demand has risen sharply increaseing demand. Oil companies are doing a job simple as that. Oil companies do not set energy policy they may lobby for it but with so many things we all see our govt do that don;t make sense, we sit on our hands and wish it would go away.......

The problem comes from our politicians not having the foresight to see this coming,

even that may not be correct.... It probably should be stated that our politicians saw it coming but realized that most of us are unwilling to do what it takes to change our fuel dependence. So the blame lays on the John Q Public ( all of us)

I hate to Admit it but President Carter saw this coming and if that dumbass did the rest of us should of to and insisted our govt start working on this thirty years ago the first time the Arabs held our feet to the fire.

We are a nation of political and economic illiterates and we deserve what we get :eyeroll:


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## Lvn2Hnt (Feb 22, 2005)

I finally got to watch the 60 Minutes portion about Gov. Schweitzer. It was done pretty well except for the part where he talks about how dirty the coal is. Despite popular belief coal is very clean and emits very little negative chemicals despite what others say. What really got me is how they talked about the "smoke stacks" on the power plants.

Those are not "smoke stacks" nor do they emit smoke. The colored air that you see rising from such power plants is actually steam, not smoke, not smog.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Well when you burn any fuel there is "Smoke" a better term is "products of combustion"
The stacks have scrubbers on them which are arrays of nozzles which send a high pressure mist through the emissions to scrub out the particles that are leaving the stacks. Its not perfect but its acceptable if maintained correctly. And there are all kinds of regs about limits on emmions

SO what you are seeing is water vapor, steam is invisible by the way.


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

A small addendum. What you are seeing is what the state health dept. and the federal gov't. calls acceptable emissions levels. The visible emissions other than steam are often carried with the prevailing winds and appear as a brown or gray streak across the sky. The plants all work very hard to keep their emissions within standards and it is always a very expensive proposition for them to do so. As I stated elsewhere; unless we are willing to accept a reasonable amount of pollution, we will be hard put to make reasonable progress with energy independence. Every time we make progress, some environmental group determines that we are in violation of another obscure, outdated statute. Hopeful, Burl


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## KRAKMT (Oct 24, 2005)

I watched it and thought he did ok. I thought 60 minutes looked stupid. Showing clips of nazis and aparthied when talking about technology was lame. As was showing the berkley pit (a copper pit mine) when talking about coal mining. But what would a hard hitting informative news show be without talking about jaz. And the oppositions point about how we should be developing biofuel was slanted slightly since the legislature approved Swietzers last pet project of building a ethenol plant by Shelby. In reality the state is working on both for once and that is how it should be.

The Germans have been working on fuel efficient turbo diesels that are breaking the 50 miles per gallon mark. My understanding is the emissions are killing them- high sulfer problems. I am currious if the coal could cut those vehicle emissions.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Isn't 2006 the year they are supposed to have to remove the sulfur from diesel???


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## Gun Owner (Sep 9, 2005)

Thats supposed to take effect in 2007


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Doesn't really matter what the issue is they always refuse to deal with it or worse lie about. it isn't it interesting when it was looked at by the court they decided the oil companines weren't gouging!
Yet we heard all our politicians complaining to the stupid that " big oil" were gouging and "we would get to the bottom of it" :eyeroll:

God we are stupid to put up with the people we have in congress :roll: 
Oily politics
By Thomas Sowell

Mar 8, 2006

The Supreme Court's recent 8 to 0 decision (Justice Alito not yet participating) shot down a claim that oil companies were colluding in setting prices. That claim was upheld by the far-left 9th Circuit Court of Appeals but neither liberals nor conservatives on the Supreme Court were buying it.

*This unanimous vote should also tell us something about those politicians who are forever blaming rising gasoline prices on oil company collusion and "greed." There is no point exposing a lie unless we learn to be skeptical the next time the liars come out with the same story.*
After hurricane Katrina destroyed a lot of oil processing capacity around the Gulf of Mexico, there was -- surprise! -- less oil being processed. With less oil being supplied -- surprise again! -- gasoline prices rose.

However much economists rely on supply and demand to explain price movements, politicians need villains, so that the pols can play hero. Big Oil is a favorite villain and has been for decades.

There is nothing like the political melodrama of summoning oil company executives to televised hearings before some Congressional committee, where politicians can wax indignant at Big Oil's profits.

It so happens that Big Government takes more money in taxes out of a gallon of gas than Big Oil takes out in profits. But apparently somehow taxes don't raise prices. They certainly don't raise indignation from the politicians who voted for those taxes.

After the oil processing facilities were repaired and put back in operation -- yet another surprise! -- prices came back down. Supply and demand has been doing this for centuries but apparently the word has not yet reached some politicians.

There is another aspect to supply and demand. As countries like China and India have in recent years begun allowing more market transactions to replace government controls, their economies have begun growing much more rapidly.

Growing economies mean rising demand for food, for shelter, for more of the amenities of life. That in turn means a rising demand for oil, leading to rising oil prices around the world.

Those who think in terms of supply and demand suggest -- do surprises never end? -- we ought to supply more oil to meet the rising demand. But the very politicians who are noisiest about the high price of oil are the most bitterly opposed to increasing the supply.

Drilling for more oil might disturb some animals or birds or fish. Worse yet, on a clear day people with beachfront homes might be able to see an offshore oil rig out on the horizon.

Even those who can't see oil being drilled in some isolated hinterland in Alaska would know that the drilling was going on, and that would upset their sensitive natures.

So we are left with nothing we can do about the rising demand for oil around the world, nothing we are willing to do about increasing the supply of oil, and angry denunciations of rising oil prices.

The politically correct answer is that we must have "alternative energy sources" and "conservation." At what cost -- in money, in jobs, in constraints on people's lives -- is too crass a question for those delicate souls who are dead set against producing more oil.

These souls are apparently not so delicate, however, that they are bothered by the deaths of coal miners who get killed producing one of those "alternative energy sources" that sound so nice when you don't count the costs.

Many of the same delicate sensitivities have kept nuclear power plants or hydroelectric dams from being built in the United States for decades. Some in liberal political or media circles talk ominously about the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant "disaster" -- in which no one was killed, as compared to coal mines, in which lives continue to be lost, year after year.

Meanwhile, the fetishes of a self-congratulatory few, who demonize others as selfish, impose staggering costs on the country as a whole. Facts get nowhere against these fetishes because the fetishes are what provide a badge of identity as wonderful and special people.

Thomas Sowell is the prolific author of books such as Black ******** and White Liberals and Applied Economics.

Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com

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Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns ... 89031.html


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