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Anything that needs oil can be produced from coal. There are estimates that liquid fuel produced from coal can compete with oil when oil cost is 80-100 USD/barr

Anything that needs oil can be produced from coal. There are estimates that liquid fuel produced from coal can compete with oil when oil cost is 80-100 USD/barrel. The catch is that making coal liquid requires a lot of energy. If that energy comes from coal itself it is a very dirty process. But if energy comes from renewables or nuclear, it is not an issue. In fact with renewables and storage leading to cheaper electricity, the price competitiveness of coal-based liquid fuels will only get better.

elzbardico 1y ago
Why would you extract those things from coal, when right now there's plenty of oil?
- kragen 1y ago
  Coal is enormously more abundant.
  - fakedang 1y ago
    Yet more costly and injurious to extract.
    - defrost 1y ago
      That's highly variable - a significantly large volume of coal mined globally is via bucket-wheel excavators / mobile strip mining machines. That's overburden removal followed by near surface bed extraction with machines - no underground mining, underground being the mining domain that sees high injury and death rates. Regardless, fuel from oil or fuel from coal is still fuel from dead and buried organics, from resurfaced long buried carbon products, and still introducing more CO2 into the atmosphere which is counter productive toward any goal of reducing the insulation factor of the atmosphere.
      - fpoling 1y ago
        Long term if people would really like to do something with CO2 emissions then CO2 captured from atmosphere can be used for chemical processes instead of coal/oil.
        defrost 1y ago
        Got a link to a Technical Economical Feasibility Report on this? As in, what can practically be achieved in the real world at large within the next 25 years that can be immediately funded with a forward capital loan to break ground on a plant within 12 to 18 months and start operating within five years? How does actual atmospheric carbon capture scale out within a useful time frame?
        kragen 1y ago
        We've taken 150 years to emit all this carbon. Why do you think that a solution that takes more than 5 years isn't practical? I don't think the real world is actually where you're living.
        defrost 1y ago
        > Why do you think that a solution that takes more than 5 years isn't practical? A better question would be why do you think that is what I said or implied? I'm well aware that in the future we will all be flying jet-ski's and teleporting to Mars, today I'm more interested in near and mid term policy, for one of many examples the recent CSIRO cost and benefits report on nuclear vs renewable strategies in Australia (what did that conclude, and will it swap policy decisions). Given you've apparently taken the mantle of one who lives in the real world rather than the dull fantasy world I inhabit perhaps you could expand on the existing abilities and plans for carbon storage and fuel from air and contrast the achievable volumes within time frames that matter against the current and projected volumes of carbon emissions. We're mostly all looking for a path forward in my neighborhood, a little less interested in wishful thinking about distant futures, so any pragmatic detail you can provide about next steps would be constructive. > I don't think the real world is actually where you're living. Cheap swipe kragen, I've previously thought you could do better.
  - elzbardico 1y ago
    But then you'd have now a gigantic capital outlay to convert your supply chain of chemical from using oil and gas to start using coal as a feedstock. Again, why?
    - kragen 1y ago
      Because solar energy is free, while oil and gas are scarce and expensive. This will make your oil-fueled products economically uncompetitive against Chinese products made with solar energy. Not this year, but two to five years from now.
      - elzbardico 1y ago
        I was under the impression that we were discussing crude as feedstock for chemicals versus coal. I was not discussing what we would be using as the energy source. Oil-based petrochemical chains are shorter, cleaner, and more energy-efficient. Coal-based chains substitute chemical routes via synthetic gas and methanol, with higher cost and more energy usage. It makes sense for a country like China that is not rich in oil and has vast coal reserves, but not in the environmental sense, only in the strategical, geopolitical sense.
fakedang 1y ago
So many wrong points here. The coal to liquid (CTL) process looks good on paper up until it isn't. Like you mentioned, it requires a lot of energy, energy which most countries cannot afford to divert. There's no point in using nuclear or renewables for CTL when SABIC can simply undercut you on price by 10x or more. > There are estimates that liquid fuel produced from coal can compete with oil when oil cost is 80-100 USD/barrel. Oil is currently at 61-65 USD per barrel, with OPEC ensuring it stays that way because even they know it's only going to fall from there. Even the 61-65 USD price point leaves a bad taste in their mouths. > In fact with renewables and storage leading to cheaper electricity, the price competitiveness of coal-based liquid fuels will only get better. No, with renewables and storage offering cheap electricity, oil also gets cheaper! In fact, I'd argue that CTL is something only countries with extremely abundant domestic reserves of coal can do - China, South Africa and Australia. In fact, nearly every planned CTL plant has been delayed or scrapped in the US as infeasible.

elzbardico 1y ago

Why would you extract those things from coal, when right now there's plenty of oil?

kragen 1y ago
Coal is enormously more abundant.
- fakedang 1y ago
  Yet more costly and injurious to extract.
  - defrost 1y ago
    That's highly variable - a significantly large volume of coal mined globally is via bucket-wheel excavators / mobile strip mining machines. That's overburden removal followed by near surface bed extraction with machines - no underground mining, underground being the mining domain that sees high injury and death rates. Regardless, fuel from oil or fuel from coal is still fuel from dead and buried organics, from resurfaced long buried carbon products, and still introducing more CO2 into the atmosphere which is counter productive toward any goal of reducing the insulation factor of the atmosphere.
    - fpoling 1y ago
      Long term if people would really like to do something with CO2 emissions then CO2 captured from atmosphere can be used for chemical processes instead of coal/oil.
      - defrost 1y ago
        Got a link to a Technical Economical Feasibility Report on this? As in, what can practically be achieved in the real world at large within the next 25 years that can be immediately funded with a forward capital loan to break ground on a plant within 12 to 18 months and start operating within five years? How does actual atmospheric carbon capture scale out within a useful time frame?
        kragen 1y ago
        We've taken 150 years to emit all this carbon. Why do you think that a solution that takes more than 5 years isn't practical? I don't think the real world is actually where you're living.
        defrost 1y ago
        > Why do you think that a solution that takes more than 5 years isn't practical? A better question would be why do you think that is what I said or implied? I'm well aware that in the future we will all be flying jet-ski's and teleporting to Mars, today I'm more interested in near and mid term policy, for one of many examples the recent CSIRO cost and benefits report on nuclear vs renewable strategies in Australia (what did that conclude, and will it swap policy decisions). Given you've apparently taken the mantle of one who lives in the real world rather than the dull fantasy world I inhabit perhaps you could expand on the existing abilities and plans for carbon storage and fuel from air and contrast the achievable volumes within time frames that matter against the current and projected volumes of carbon emissions. We're mostly all looking for a path forward in my neighborhood, a little less interested in wishful thinking about distant futures, so any pragmatic detail you can provide about next steps would be constructive. > I don't think the real world is actually where you're living. Cheap swipe kragen, I've previously thought you could do better.
- elzbardico 1y ago
  But then you'd have now a gigantic capital outlay to convert your supply chain of chemical from using oil and gas to start using coal as a feedstock. Again, why?
  - kragen 1y ago
    Because solar energy is free, while oil and gas are scarce and expensive. This will make your oil-fueled products economically uncompetitive against Chinese products made with solar energy. Not this year, but two to five years from now.
    - elzbardico 1y ago
      I was under the impression that we were discussing crude as feedstock for chemicals versus coal. I was not discussing what we would be using as the energy source. Oil-based petrochemical chains are shorter, cleaner, and more energy-efficient. Coal-based chains substitute chemical routes via synthetic gas and methanol, with higher cost and more energy usage. It makes sense for a country like China that is not rich in oil and has vast coal reserves, but not in the environmental sense, only in the strategical, geopolitical sense.

fakedang 1y ago

So many wrong points here. The coal to liquid (CTL) process looks good on paper up until it isn't. Like you mentioned, it requires a lot of energy, energy which most countries cannot afford to divert. There's no point in using nuclear or renewables for CTL when SABIC can simply undercut you on price by 10x or more. > There are estimates that liquid fuel produced from coal can compete with oil when oil cost is 80-100 USD/barrel. Oil is currently at 61-65 USD per barrel, with OPEC ensuring it stays that way because even they know it's only going to fall from there. Even the 61-65 USD price point leaves a bad taste in their mouths. > In fact with renewables and storage leading to cheaper electricity, the price competitiveness of coal-based liquid fuels will only get better. No, with renewables and storage offering cheap electricity, oil also gets cheaper! In fact, I'd argue that CTL is something only countries with extremely abundant domestic reserves of coal can do - China, South Africa and Australia. In fact, nearly every planned CTL plant has been delayed or scrapped in the US as infeasible.