National research council Nixes coal-to-GTL projects

Diesel Fuel News, March 3, 2003 by Jack Peckham

Despite a just-approved U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) $100 million grant for a waste-coal-to-diesel GTL project in Pennsylvania (see Diesel Fuel News 1/20/03, p7), a Nattional Research Council (NRC) report recommends that such projects "should not be funded" by DOE's "Vision 21" research program. The Waste Management; & Processors Inc. (WMPI) coal-GTL project technically falls under DOE's "Clean Coal Power Initiative" rather than "Vision 21"--but the distinction is fuzzy, given that "Vision 21" is just a placeholder-name that represents a collection of DOE clean-coal/gasification and GTL R&D projects, rather than a DOE budget line-item.

What's more, WMPI's coal-GTL plant concept engineering studies were previously funded under "Vision 21"--blurring the distinction even further.

The NRC report, "Review of DOE's Vision 21 Research & Development Program--Phase 1" (www.nap.edw'catalog/10596.html) recommends that "detailed engineering design/economic feasibility studies of coal co-production complexes and large-scale, pilot-plant demonstration runs of conventional processes to make low-value fuels such as diesel, methanol and DME should not be funded by the Vision 21 program."

Coal-to-fuels via gasification and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis was first outlined several years ago in DOE's "Vision 21" concept under what was called the "ultra-clean fuels initiative."

Congress never funded "ultra-clean fuels" to the levels DOE originally hoped. In any case, U.S. President George Bush later proposed that Congress eliminate nearly all funding for "ultra-clean fuels" programs at DOE, including any coal-GTL projects.