Clean Diesel from Coal

As the cost of oil soars and worries over the U.S. dependence on foreign petroleum escalate, coal is becoming an increasingly attractive alternative as a feedstock to make a range of fuels. Now chemists have invented a new catalytic process that could increase the yield of a clean form of diesel made from coal.

The method, described in the current issue of the journal Science, uses a pair of catalysts to improve the yield of diesel fuel from Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis, a nearly century-old chemical technique for reacting carbon monoxide and hydrogen to make hydrocarbons. The mixture of gases is produced by heating coal. Although Germany used the process during World War II to convert coal to fuel for its military vehicles, F-T synthesis has generally been too expensive to compete with oil.

Kevin Bullins

For those who complain about the high price of oil, market forces are now making solutions like this economically feasible, if not attractive. Our so-called "dependence" on foreign oil is nothing more than a competitive expression of the laws of supply and demand. Foreign oil was the cheapest form of energy and was in the greatest supply. Does anyone else remember the dire predictions of the late 1960s and early 1970s that petrochemicals would be exhausted before the turn of the century? Now that demand is pushing the price of crude oil up, alternatives like this and like bio-diesel will become economical. If we can keep our knee-jerk politicians from introducing anti-competitive and anti-market forces, technology will catch up soon and we will see our dependence on foreign oil decrease.

But everyone needs to get used to $3 per gallon gasoline, because it's here to stay. I do not see that as a negative, by the way. We will adjust if the market is left to play out as it will. If our instant-gratification culture will simply exercise a little patience, the pain will not last nearly as long as they might think.