oil prices have been high and trending higher for awhile. So how non Western countries with lots of coal like India and Ukraine not having a huge coal gasification industry expansion? And how come, let’s say, Japan is not doing the same by using imported coal?
Are there political pressures emanating from the West stopping this? Or are the requisite oil prices not yet achieved and people with the money to invest do not believe they will be achieved any time soon?
Here I will note that while coal gasification may be “complex”, it surely is not as “complex” as nuclear power. While there may be a hundred ways to choke off establishment of nuclear power plants even in foreign countries, coal gasification is something that South Africa (with a minuscule white population comparable to Belgium) had no trouble pulling off on a large scale back when technology was much more primitive than now.
Coal gasification isn’t a substitute for nuclear power. If you want to use coal to generate electricity, you just burn the coal in a conventional coal plant.
The reason to convert coal to liquid fuel is if you want to use the fuel for transportation. And while gasoline expensive, it requires a massive capital investment to create a coal to liquid refinery. What if global oil prices drop again? I don’t know the price where you could recover your investment safely, but obviously oil prices haven’t risen high enough yet.
If oil prices continue to rise, coal to liquid is one possible response. Another response is to start switching to electric and burn the coal as per usual in existing coal power plants.
It strikes me as a bit silly for Japan to import coal, only to convert it to liquid fuel. Surely it would make a lot more sense for coal producing countries to set up plants and export the liquid fuel. And Japan is much more likely to switch to electrics and add more public transportation.
I brought up nuclear power purely as an example of an industry that has been deliberately politically hampered in the West as well as to some extent restricted for non Westerners, not as an alternative to coal gasification.
Your point about Japan importing synthetic fuel from a coal exporter would make sense if the coal exporter is politically capable of producing it. If that is China, the answer is obviously yes, but if that is Australia, you never know.
Coal gasification and power generation is getting a lot of attention here in Germany as they move toward a goal of decommissioning all nuclear generation by 2020. Particularly of interest is the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle as it has the potential to offer a much smaller pollution footprint and significantly reduced CO2 emissions compared to conventional coal fired generation. Both are big issues here as Germany looks to replace its nuclear generation (about 1/4 of all generation) without significantly increasing its carbon foot print or air pollution levels.
