Montana's Coal to Gas Conversion Proposal: Can it Be Up and Running Quickly?

Montana may have the answer to America's energy dichotomy: using more fuels every year (and importing the greater portion of it) and producing less every year in the United States.

Donald Trump, New York , The Apprentice on NBC and New York City real estate baron, owns a golf course and luxury home development on Southern California's coast.

On the other side of his mountain lays a covered-over landfill where millions of tons of garbage and bacteria are creating energy, fueling a turbine power plant with the methane ("natural") gas produced.

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer has a similar idea for utilizing his states 120 billion tons of coal to produce fuels. (This coould yield 180 billion Barrels of SynFuels. This coal would be converted into liquids through a Fischer-Tropsch process, heating coal into a gas in a contained reaction requiring no additional energy. (eletric power for example.)

The gases given-off can have the arsenic, mercury and sulfur removed, than are distilled into a synthetic form of crude oil which can then be further refined, creating clean-burn fuel. The byproducts would be naptha, surfboard waxes (you always wondered where they came from) cosmetic chemicals and fertilizer.

Fischer-Tropsch Liquidsare gasoline, diesel and kerosene (jet fuel) that are made synthetically (SynFuel) that is, from coal or natural gas instead of imported oil. These are clean-burning, high-performing fuels that require no engine modifications.
The state of Montana is sponsoring the development of the technology for Coal-to-Liquids to provide fuel for the United States millions of cars and trucks.

Getting back to Donald Trump's neighbor, the natural gas producing landfill, a similar underground process could be used in the coal fields. Adjacent oilwell type holes are drilled, other injection wells are used to feed a pressurizrd oxidant such as air or oxygen/steam into the coal seam and to feed the iginition process, production wells recover the gases.

Water necessary for the process is already within the coal formations, is recycled as condensate and can be used for the cooling process. There are no cinders or ashes to landfill in an underground gasifier. This system is known as a hydraulic system.

I went on a tour of the landfill's otherwise wasted natural gas fueled turbine power plant with a Los Angeles County Environmental Engineer and asked him if yard waste could be inserted an a well at the top of the landfill to keep the process going (and save filling-up other canyons)? He said "No, we run a dry landfill here. I'm going to further research this and see if that is possible. Some of the millions of tons of organic waste in Los Angeles County is trucked hundreds of miles away.

The Fischer-Tropsch Fuels that Montana's governor wants to supply the United States with is just part of the total potential suppy. Our country has 268 billion tons of coal (reserves). If we Fisher-Tropsch synthesize 5% of those deposits that wold yield fuel equivalent to the U.S. total crude oil reserves of 29 billion barrels, doubling our country's domesticly produced fuel supply.

Syntroleum Corporation, Tulsa, Oklahoma has completed a laboratory demonstration of a new Catalyst for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of coal-yielding syngas at an online coal gasification plant. The Syntroleum FT-410 Cobalt Catalyst was able to convert natural gas into ultra-clean diesel and jet fuels for the U.S. governments programs.
The second-stage will test the FT-410 Cobalt Catalyst with existing coal-derived syngas clean-up and treatment systems for use for coal-to-liquids yields.

The Fischer-Tropsch Technology has been in use for several decades. The big question is: How quickly can the United States bring new plants online? Continuing research and development by various governments, the "Oil" industry and me! will add the knowledge being compiled on this important process.