Professor Alan Goldman and his Rutgers team in collaboration with researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed a way to convert carbon sources, such as coal, to diesel fuel.

This important advance could significantly cut America’s dependence on…oil. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, our 286 billion tons of coal in the ground translate into energy reserves 40 times those of oil. Diesel engines provide the power to move 94 percent of all freight in the U.S. and 95 percent of all transit buses and heavy construction machinery, consuming approximately 56 billion gallons of diesel fuel per year.

Goldman explained that the breakthrough technology employs a pair of catalytic chemical reactions that operate in tandem, one of which captured the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This dynamic chemical duo revamps the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process for generating synthetic petroleum substitutes, invented in 1920 but never developed to the point of becoming commercially viable for coal conversion.

“I study catalysts, the little molecular machines that control chemical reactions. With our new catalysts, one can generate productive, clean burning fuels economically and at unsurpassed levels of efficiency using Fischer-Tropsch,” said Goldman.

Fischer-Tropsch yields a wide distribution of molecular weight hydrocarbon products but without any way to control the desired mix. The low-weight and the high-weight Fischer-Tropsch products are useful – the light as gas and the medium-heavy as diesel fuel, Goldman explained.

“The problem – the greatest inefficiency of the process – is that you also wind up with a substantial quantity of medium-weight products that are not useful and you are stuck with them,” Goldman said. “What we are now able to do with our new catalysts is something no one else has done before. We take all these undesirable medium-weight substances and convert them to the useful higher- and lower-weight products.”

Can’t happen too soon!



  1. Milo says:

    The original diesel engine was designed to run on any oil product, including animal fat and vegitable oil. Shortly after Rudolph Diesel’s death the engine was modified so it can’t run on other oils. You still can get a rather inexpensive kit that can modify just about any diesel engine back to its original intent. The US throws away several billion quarts of grease every year. The oil and coal industry would rather nobody knew this.

  2. gquaglia says:

    Don’t count on big oil supporting this anytime soon. They are making truck loads of money on gas shortage fears.

  3. Eideard says:

    gc — in some ways I think this is the most important tech article I’ve posted here. Discussing it with folks offline, this morning — including some with years in mining — the response has been uniformly positive.

    One aspect I’ve not been able to track down [yet] is how thoroughly the oil barons may also be moving into coal to [1] expand profits and/or [2] hinder the competition. The last coal strike I was involved in — 20 years ago — I was surprised to learn the staid old Western coal company we were battling turned out to be owned by Chevron.

  4. Monty says:

    The bigger issue is the greenhouse gasses that are released by using this product. It may address foreign oil dependence (come on, folks, most of our oil comes form Canada), but it actually is a step backwards on environmental issues.

  5. Eideard says:

    Monty — I appreciate where you’re coming from; but, get up-to-date. 2007 spec will have US diesel requirements at or below gasoline engine emissions standards. Part of that problem is unwillingness of Big Oil to offer diesel fuel here at Euro spec.

    Canada’s oil imports exceed what we get from Mexico by about 4%. Whoop-de-doo!

  6. Hal Jordan says:

    The U.S. government did not foment war on Iraq so that at some later time techheads could invent an alternative solution that would render the lives of countless thousands as an expensive footnote on how NOT to obtain oil. Good luck with all that, but don’t hold your breath!

  7. Milo says:

    The thing that kills me cyberdork is that bio fuel technology predates petroleom!

  8. Johan says:

    Congratulations. Sasol in South Africa has been generating fuel from coal (including diesel) since 1955

    http://www.caia.co.za/chsahs03.htm

  9. Jesus says:

    While this could stave off the coming oil crisis, it will never make it into production in any applicable fashion for the public. The powers that are and will continue to persist won’t allow this in the near future because it would hurt their profits. While I applaud the efforts of the engineers behind this project, they are nonetheless futile. No fuel source will be readied within the next five to thirty years in which time oil will no longer be a feasible option for any entity other than the governments of the world (primarily the U.S.) to be used primarily for the military to further subjugate the remaining populous. What the world is in dire need of is a renewable clean energy source. Coal, finite and dirty. Nuclear, too much toxic waste. Hydrogen, finite and dangerous. Hydroelectric, could never meet demand. Solar, not nearly efficient enough. Wind, too costly of an investment of current resources to put them in place as well as opposition. Vegetable oils, not enough arable land to meet demand. What are we left with at this point, nothing that the public has been alerted to. Hope for a truly ingenious invention that could be easily constructed by local engineers or heavy fabricators, otherwise start reading up on urban planning and devising a plan of how you’ll live without the ease of life oil has provided.

  10. Urban says:

    Jesus, aren’t you a pessimist?
    Too many people confuse energy sources with storage media and conveyors. Solar power is feasible and cheaper than other ways of harvesting energy to use it temporarily for human needs or whims. So that new technology exists. What is needed is a plan to use energy sustainably, the present overconsumption needs to be curbed, if not, it will stall by itself at some place later in history.
    There are really few energy sources, mainly the sun and nuclear power. The rest of them are storage media, most of them at one point in history harvesting the power of the sun, or they are conveyors, as wind or wave energy. The internal heat of the planet is another stored energy that may be harvested.
    So, oil or coal are not energy sources, but storage media, the storage took place long ago. When we use them, coal is again released to the atmosphere, changing the climate system of the planet.
    Hydrogen does not exist in nature, it is released from compounds by various means, which all include usage of other energy forms. So it could be categorized as a conveyor or storage, though the latter seems inappropriate as most methods to convert it uses up substantially more energy than the hydrogen later will release. Thus it is rather a conveyor with rather poor efficiency.
    The solution to the dilemma of alternative sustainable technologies is simple. When they are considerably cheaper than using the progressively more expensive ways of using energy, the industry will explore their potential and migrate to them. Whether they will suffice for an increased demand is not the question. We all have to adapt to the availability of the natural resources of the planet.

  11. doug says:

    11. complete agreement. coal, oil, hydrogen, etc are all energy storage media, not sources. as oil gets more expensive, other options will become viable. human ingenuity will eventually push us past fossil fuels. and, frankly, the rampant consumption of oil creats not only inconveniences but oppressions as well. It is certainly convenient to be able to go where you want, when you want. no denying that. but that 90 minute commute in traffic is not convenient. The payment on the monster SUV is not convenient, not to mention gas, insurance, maintenance, etc. so if an energy “crisis” causes a movement away from unfun driving (commutes) to public transit, that would actually liberate a number of people in the US.

    and it does not really matter where the US gets its oil from – a crisis in Iran will jack up the price of Canadian and North Sea oil, too. so conquest of foreign oil-rich lands won’t really help.

  12. Jesus says:

    #11 Urban and partially #12 doug in response to number #10.

    Without involving greater semantics or physics, I’ll attempt to make my points brief and I hope that they can be of some help to you.

    Energy Source: The primary source that provides the power that is converted to electricity through chemical, mechanical, or other means. Energy sources include coal, petroleum and petroleum products, gas, water, uranium, wind, sunlight, geothermal, and other sources.
    http://www.pplweb.com/glossary.htm

    What may cause some confusion is whether they are primary or secondary which wasn’t pertinent for me to clarify for the points that I was making in post #10. Nobody knows the source of energy in the universe, because to know that you’d have to know who created the universe. Whatever created the Big Bang is the true source of all energy. So fine, call petroleum and its derivatives storage mediums, they are but they are also sources of energy, it all depends on how far back one is willing to go to define “source”.

    We have squandered this time of luxury that wouldn’t have been possible without oil. Many believe that we are beyond world peak oil production. Hubbert believed it occurred in the 70’s. The last years of spoil where we could use the energy oil gives us to conduct research on alternatives that are renewable is far beyond the point where it could be implemented before oil is exhausted. I hope that my view is pessimistic and I will gladly admit that I’m wrong, though I fear after listening to what people who have a much better idea than any of us are talking about, maybe you might agree.

    For a quick lowdown on the magnitude of the situation we wil be facing soon check out the documentary “The End of Suburbia”.

    http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

    Or if one isn’t as flush they need it can always be found as a torrent.

  13. ECA says:

    and what are the chemicals LEFT OVER…That are so caustic that we have to bury them in AZ??? With the OTHERS, like BENZENE…

    COME ON…we are trying to get AWAY from this stuff…
    They dont show the Process Leftovers, the CRUD from the process…ANd they dont discuss that Heavy fuels like this TEND to leave heavy metals ALL over the USA…Including arsenic, lead, and mercury from the exhaust…

    OTHER options are ALREADY HERE…we just dont use them…DUH…
    My 86 Oldmobile gets better milage then MOST little cars, WONDER WHY……..
    We can make Alcohol engines, and WE ALREADY MAKE them for Brazil…
    Alcohol can be made for ALMOST any plant…INCLUDING a couple REAL voracious ones, that grow VERY well, almost anywhere…Including Hemp, MJ, and Cudzu….
    We can get Nitrogen VERY easy, at ANY weilding shop…But they dont want you to KNOW THAT its CHEAP, Until they can make a PROPRITARY process so you have to pay MORE for it…
    And STEAM engines can be made VERY VERY efficent, and NOT use water, and recycle 99% of the material to power it…
    ANd Bio desal, for ALL the extra grease and OILS we use today…

  14. Me says:

    A world without trucks and full size SUVs isn’t worth it’s existense. This is a way to fuel REAL vehicles so it’s good. All types of fuels are good if they allow us to continue to drive real vehicles.

    A world full of mass transit would be better off destroyed.

  15. ab cd says:

    >the greenhouse gasses that are released by using this product.

    Check out Gregg easterbrook’s column at ESPN. The media doesn’t mention it, but the Bush Administration passed new restrictions on diesel emissions, from the big vehicles that produce the most pollution.

  16. Charles says:

    Coal is such a versatile material. While the idea is not new is very interesting.

    Coal however is still polluting the environment.

    Coal is a fossil fuel formed in ecosystems where plant remains were preserved by water and mud from oxidization and biodegradation, thus sequestering atmospheric carbon.

    Coal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black rock. It is a sedimentary rock, but the harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rocks because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure.

    It is composed primarily of carbon along with assorted other elements, including sulfur. It is the largest single source of fuel for the generation of electricity world-wide, as well as the largest world-wide source of carbon dioxide emissions, which, according to the IPCC are responsible for causing climate change and global warming.

    In terms of carbon dioxide emissions, coal is slightly ahead of petroleum and about double that of natural gas.

    Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, either underground mining or open pit mining (surface mining).

  17. sniffsmith says:

    Indeed… The original diesel engine was designed to work properly on any oils. But you can’t get the same performance from any oils.

    ___________
    inchirieri auto


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