During the OPEC oil imbargo of the early 70’s, the U.S.Dep’t of Energy built a pilot plant here in Indiana, PA to make automotive fuel from the abundant coal deposits here.
Progress was promising & was on the brink of success when the embargo was ended.
The far sighted (NOT) DOE closed the plant & sold it for scrap!!!
We once were close to becommming independent to OPEC, but blew it!
Should the current fuel problem persist, I’m sure another multi-million pilot plant will be built only to be abandoned when (& if) the fuel prices drop! We could have been ready this time!
I can’t recall who did it, but someone either tried or actually succeeded in creating a fuel from soybeans that could be used in diesel motors without modifying them. It was supposed to be just as efficent and yet pollute less. I think. :shrug:
Hey, how’d you make this topic appear so many times? (I’m sure it was an accident.)
SORRY!!!
Each time I tried to enter this post
I got a reply that the SDMB was too busy. I acknowlaged then tried again.
So, I gave up. When I now fired up my WebTv (don’t laugh!) I was surprized to find replies to this post that supposedly never went through! By the time I got back, all the superflous entries had been removed. How many got through?
BTW, I paid $1.799/gal at Christmas time 1999 in Mad River, CA
Again, Sorry!
Carl
The pilot plant was just that, a pilot plant. The government never intended to go into commercial production. The plant was just intended to develop and demonstrate the technology.
It did work but even with those prices, we could buy gas cheaper than we could make it from coal. There was no-one to buy the plant, so the equipment was sold to recover some of the money that went into it.
Gas prices would have to go up a lot and stay up for a long time before any commercial group would build such a plant. Otherwise, OPEC could put them out of business by just increasing production.