ABSTRACT
A chemical process used for turning coal into liquid fuels that has the potential for producing hundreds of thousands of barrels per day of hydrocarbon liquids and other byproducts—including electricity—is described. The key to converting coal to liquids is the Fischer–Tropsch (FT) process, which was invented in Germany in the 1920s. This process is used today in full-scale production plants in South Africa and it is being planned for use in plants in many other parts of world. A coal-to-liquids (CTL) industry is highly valued because of the security in using domestic sources of supply (coal) to produce hydrocarbons, in an environmentally acceptable process, that can be blended and refined into liquid fuels and transported to the end-user. In particular, FT fuels can play a significant role in providing a fuel currently used in the transportation industry and thus reducing dependence on imported petroleum and other refined transportation fuel products. This is of particular importance to the United States, which has an abundance of coal.
