Quick, change more lightbulbs!

China kicks off the coal-to-liquids rush 8

Looks like China is about to uncork the CTL genie, opening a plant to produce liquid fuel from coal.

This won't be the last:

A study last year by the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: "Production of liquid fuels from coal is practically the most feasible route to cope with the dilemma in oil supply."

It concluded: "Establishing large-scale CTL [coal-to-liquids] plants on the pitheads of several main coalfields is feasible and competitive when oil price is well over US$25 per barrel."

Well, we're screwed I guess. A couple of things from the article are (darkly) humorous. Like this line:

Some [CTL companies] also herald it as a way to fight global warming, despite the industry's own figures, which show that converting and burning the liquid coal together releases almost twice the carbon pollution as using conventional diesel.

I guess they can herald whatever they want to herald, huh?

And this:

Luke Warren of the World Coal Institute, admitted the process was "carbon dioxide intensive", but said the greenhouse gas could be captured and stored underground.

Much like I "could be a millionaire." Now if someone would just give me a million dollars ...

Also:

Even capturing the carbon may not solve the problem. An analysis by the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory last year said that liquid fuels from coal, even with carbon capture and storage employed, would still produce at least 20% more carbon dioxide than petrol and diesel made from oil.

Screwed.

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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  1. Alex 77 Posted 11:27 am
    21 Feb 2008

    Very screwed!David, I for one appreciate that you don't sugarcoat such developments, and call them as they are. Perhaps large scale Chinese development of CTL will hasten a climate catastrophe, and that maybe it will even be properly attributed to human-forced climate change. It would seem that only an awesomely destructive climate event will move the masses, and governments, to get serious about not killing ourselves.
    And remember what Derrick Jensen said:
    "We're f@#*%d, and life is really, really good."

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  2. RHY Posted 1:24 pm
    21 Feb 2008

    Carbon Neutral CTL?If people can claim "carbon neutral" air travel, why can't China claim "carbon neutral" CTL?
    China has an annual production capacity of 3.1 billion condoms and imports another 1.5 billion.
    Assuming they could inflate the used ones to an average size of 10 liters, they would have an impressive 46 gigaliter capacity to store the unwanted CO2.

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  3. bookerly Posted 2:57 pm
    21 Feb 2008

    Directions

       It is not clear how many of these will actually get built, but generally you can expect China to try everything to meet it's growing demands for electricity.  And coal is readily available, so trying to find some way to use it is likely.
       Note that "the Chinese government has expressed concern about the possible environmental impact of uncontrolled expansion, and has taken steps to limit the number of smaller facilities."  So there are likely to be a limited number of these.
       Of course, the US continues to use coal and plans to develop such plants, and so do many other countries.  India is in the process (according to the article), and South Africa has several (and who knows, may build more).
       To change the situation, the developed countries need to use their wealth and technological knowhow to not only use green energy themselves, but to spread it to the developing countries at a price they can afford.
       Many of the developing countries are making efforts, but financial and technological constraints limit what they can do.  We can pick on them or find a way to lift everyone up.  The choice, and the ball, are still in the hands of the developed nations.
    patrick in Beijing

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  4. Whiskerfish Posted 5:32 pm
    21 Feb 2008

    South African involvement?I know Sasol has been looking for business in China.
    Anyone know if this plant is any kind of co-operative deal w them?
    The article doesn't say.
    Cheers
    Whiskerfish (in Africa)

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  5. Pompey Road Posted 11:56 pm
    21 Feb 2008

    FutureGen DivisionPike county Kentucky's and Mingo County WVA's gasification plants are still on the drawing board. Pike County being tied in with the Airforce alternative fuel program.
    They look like scaled down versions of FutureGen, is this the new direction 15 or 20 smaller plants as opposed to one large one?

    The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

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  6. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 2:50 am
    22 Feb 2008

    And You Didn't Want China and India...Wow...China is doing all the stuff you don't like (just like India) but yet you want the US to sign "international" agreements that don't include that two-fifths of the Earth's population.
    This seems like good justification for holding out until Asia joins the Green movement.

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  7. BILL HANNAHAN Posted 5:51 am
    22 Feb 2008

    Back to reality.
    Recycling CO2 with nuclear power is not quite as good as the fantasy land some Grist readers have in their imagination,
    http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/20/114336/770
     but it is far superior to the reality of coal to liquids, tar sand to liquids and oil shale to liquids.

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  8. PJD Posted 6:29 am
    22 Feb 2008

    UCGAnyone wish to weigh in with an opinion on Underground Coal Gassification.  Could this be the route to cost effective coal use with carbon sequestration?

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