The fascinating part of it is that the company named has built and is now operating a $20,000,000 plant in Carthage, Missouri that’s producing oil by processing the discharge from Mr. Tyson’s turkey processing plant. [I mention this to tell you that, according to the writer, this process isn't experimental and that there's a high net btu recovery from its use.]

The whole thing’s proprietary but - based on the inventor’s supposed willingness to sell franchises - could be expanded rapidly.

This presents the prospect of the nation increasing its domestically generated oil supply by processing the millions of tons of garbage that otherwise gets buried in land fills or dumped off-shore.

http://www.methanol.org/pdfFrame.cfm?pdf=MethanolFromCoalReport.pdf

By Steve James

NEW YORK, Dec 17 (Reuters) - When railroads ruled, it was
the sweating firemen shoveling coal into the furnace who kept
the engines running.

Now, nearly two centuries after Stephenson’s “Rocket” steam
locomotive helped usher in the Industrial Revolution, that same
coal could be the fuel that keeps the jet age aloft.

But with a twist: The planes of the future could be flown
with liquid fuel made from coal or natural gas.

Already the United States Air Force has carried out tests
flying a B-52 Stratofortress with a coal-based fuel.

And JetBlue Airways Corp. supports a bill in
Congress that would extend tax credits for alternative fuels,
pushing technology to produce jet fuel for the equivalent of
$40 a barrel — way below current oil prices.

Major coal mining companies in the United States, which has
more coal reserves than Saudi Arabia has oil, are investing in
ways to develop fuels derived from carbon.

The technology of producing a liquid fuel from coal or
natural gas is hardly new. The Fischer-Tropsch process was
developed by German researchers Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch
in 1923 and used by Germany and Japan during World War II to
produce alternative fuels. Indeed, in 1944, Germany produced
6.5 million tons, or 124,000 barrels a day.

And coal-to-liquid (CTL) fuel is already in use elsewhere,
like South Africa, where it meets 30 percent of transportation
fuel needs.

In addition to being cheaper than oil, advocates point out
that the fuel is environmentally friendlier and would also help
America wean itself of foreign oil imports.

“America must reduce its dependence on foreign oil via
environmentally sound and proven coal-to-liquid technologies,”
said JetBlue’s founder and chief executive, David Neeleman.
“Utilizing our domestic coal reserves is the right way to
achieve energy independence.”

In a recent briefing to power and energy executives, Luke
Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, said
bio-diesel fuels offer little in the way of reduced carbon
dioxide emissions, have enormous production costs and present
“serious transmission and infrastructure” problems.

In contrast, CTL transportation fuels are substantially
cleaner-burning than conventional fuels.

Popovich warned that the United States risks falling behind
economic competitors such as China, which plans to spend $25
billion on CTL plants.

America is “already behind the curve” when it comes to
tapping the vast liquid fuel potential that coal offers, said
John Ward, of natural resources company Headwaters Inc. ,
which builds CTL plants.

He said plants in America would likely each produce 40,000
barrels of CTL fuel per day, with a typical plant using 8.5
million tons of coal per year. In contrast, China is focused on
building plants capable of producing 60,000 barrels of CTL fuel
per day, he said.

“There is significant investor interest in what could be a
major growth opportunity,” said Paul Clegg, an alternative
energy analyst with Natexis Bleichroeder.

“It is a viable technology, but the question is where do
hydrocarbon prices go now? Will we continue to see oil above
$40 a barrel forever?”

In October, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and a consortium
of energy and technology companies announced the state will be
home to one of America’s first CTL energy plants.

The $1 billion Bull Mountain plant is slated to produce
22,000 barrels per day of diesel fuel and 300 megawatts of
electricity — enough to power 240,000 homes — in six years.

Schweitzer and the companies behind the plant, including
Arch Coal and DKRW Advanced Fuels LLC, say the
production of fuel and electricity will not release the
greenhouse gases associated with coal-generated electricity.

Arch has a 25-percent stake in DKRW and the companies are
also developing a CTL plant in Medicine Bow, Wyoming.

At a recent coal industry conference, the heads of two of
America’s Big Four producers talked up CTL development.

Arch Coal Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Steven Leer
said it “could be a game-changer.” Chemical companies and
railroads were asking him about using coal-based liquid fuels.

“It’s a whole new group of potential customers,” he said.

Peabody Energy Chief Executive Gregory Boyce said
of CTL: “Stay tuned, as the sector continues to evolve.

“I have heard reports that China can produce oil for $25
per barrel from coal. We see it more in the $45 range here.”

Peabody recently announced an agreement with Rentech
to evaluate sites in the Midwest and Montana for CTL
projects. The plants could range in size from producing 10,000
to 30,000 barrels of fuel per day and use approximately 3
million to 9 million tons of coal annually.

Another alternative fuel company, Syntroleum , said
recently that its ultra-clean jet fuel was successfully tested
in a USAF B-52 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The bomber
flew with a 50/50 blend of CTL and traditional JP-8 jet fuel.

“The program … is the first step in opening up new
horizons for sourcing fuel for military purposes,” said Bill
Harrison, a fuels expert with the Air Force Research Laboratory
at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

The flight test was part of the Department of Defense’s
Assured Fuel Initiative to develop secure domestic sources for
the military’s energy needs. The Pentagon hopes to reduce its
use of crude oil and foreign producers and get about half of
its aviation fuel from alternative sources by 2016.

The key to enabling this is energy storage - with companies like EEStor and Altair look like solving.

Electric vehicles and plugin hybrids are now at the point where they can begin replacing conventional oil fueled cars (look at Tesla Motors and Phoenix Motorcars for good examples that will be on the roads soon - though buying one is a challenge given their backlog of orders).

Having cars with large energy storage units in them dispersed out across the landscape enables the next step, which is building a smarter grid - one with net metering to every node and energy storage at the nodes (Richard Smalley used to envisage in house energy storage units but it appears the car based storage unit - or V2G : Vehicle to grid concept - will be the mechanism which delivers this).

Once there is distributed energy storage the main problem with big renewable energy sources like wind, tidal/wave and solar - intermittency - disappears, so these can be harnessed on a large (dominant scale).

At this point you have a transport system that no longer requires foreign oil (or coal or uranium) - true energy independence - and based on American technology.

AAt that point you no longer need to care what the Arabs (or Hugo) thinks or does…

Two routes present themselves:

1) Use nuclear power to crack water, and then the Sabatier process to turn the H2 into CH4 ( Methane ). Methane is easier to store than H2, and conversion of autos to burn methane is trivially easy.

2) Use nuclear power directly. A Strontium-90 pebblebed battery/reactor can be fitted into an SUV. Iridium coated SR-90 pebbles are not going to be damaged by an auto accident, and only release heat and Beta radiation ( electrons ) into the environment. Refueling is required every 45 years … so the cost of the reactor can be amortized over that time period.

The reactor should be a deposit item … you lease the reactor, but own the vehicle. If the vehicle becomes un-usable over time, you have the company that provided the reactor come and fetch it.

Poor folks can lease used reactors that do not have a full 45 years of usability left … something can be worked out concerning the deposit ( insurance and a pro mise to return it … whatever ).

A future solution I’d like to see is the development of methane hydrates. Oak Ridge National Laboratory says ““Estimates on how much energy is stored in methane hydrates range from 350 years’ supply to 3500 years’ supply based on current energy consumption.” http://www.ornl.gov/info/reporter/no16/methane.htm In short, there’s a lot of energy in methane hydrates.