Via Green Car CongressA Washington-state energy company may soon announce it has chosen the county port authorityÂ’s industrial park here as the site for a $4 billion coal-to-fuel conversion plant.
25 such plants would replace all the 2.4M barrels of oil imports from the Persian Gulf at a capital cost less than $100 billion (and once built the plant will be useful for 40-50 years).
Port Authority Chief Executive Director Tracy Drake declined to either confirm or deny the rumors or identify the company when contacted Thursday. “There’s been no formal announcement,” he said. “I can say there have been discussions with the company about locating here.” The rumored company is Baard Energy, and phone calls left at its headquarters in Vancouver, Wash., went unreturned by press time Thursday night. But John Baardson, president and CEO of Baard, told the July meeting of the Ohio Coal Association in Columbus they had selected the county and showed slide photographs of an industrial park site, according to coal association official Mike Carey.
Sources say the plant complex requires 200 acres and would take four years to build, creating 200 to 300 permanent jobs and 1,000 to 2,000 construction jobs. The operation is expected to create the need for 1,000 coal-mining jobs and generate another 500 to 1,000 spin-off jobs in businesses that would supply the operation. The plant is expected to need seven million tons of coal a year to convert into 35 million barrels of fuel.
That's $2.6 billion at $75/barrel. Even higher since the output does not need to be further refined. The Fischer-Tropsch process produces very high quality diesel and kerosene (jet fuel).
The news would come two months after the port authority announced it was purchasing 192 acres across state Route 7 from its Wellsville industrial complex. At the June 19 authority meeting, Drake said they were acquiring the property in part because he was in talks with a company interested in building a coal-conversion plant on the site. Drake said at the time the industrial park location was ideal because of its location along the Ohio River, a four-lane highway and major railroad. All of this would allow for the coal and finished product to be transported by barge, truck and rail car.
The process of converting coal to liquid fuel and natural gas has been around since World War II, having been first used by Germany to fuel the Nazi war machine. The process has been largely ignored since then because of the expense involved, but todayÂ’s rising oil prices have made the conversion process a cheaper alternative.
There have been a large number of Coal-Liquid conversion plant announcements, mostly in the 20,000 barrel/day range. The US is burning $100 billion/year trying to bring civilization to those savages. Five Years of War on Terror Has Cost $437 Billion. For that money, the US could build plants to replace ALL oil imports with CTL conversion. Or replace all non canadian or Mexican oil for $300 billion. Though doubling coal production is another matter but doable.
According to a news release on the coal associationÂ’s July meeting, Baardson said the coal conversion process being proposed by his company would be able to supply cleaner diesel fuel for the U.S. military and they have been in talks with the defense department. It's crucial for the military to have fuel supplies not controlled by enemies. This war will be over when the muslims spend all their time and energy scraping up enough money to import food.