Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house Stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: where smart happens. I am Marshall Brain with today's question,
Speaker 1: is it possible to turn coal into oil? And is
Speaker 1: this a good idea? Oil is currently at a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or so per barrel. The current reason for the
Speaker 1: high price is instability in the Middle East in countries
Speaker 1: like Libya. In addition, demand for oil is increasing at
Speaker 1: a time when new oil discoveries are declining. This is
Speaker 1: the whole idea behind peak oil and everything that's discussed
Speaker 1: about that. The idea that human beings are growing in number,
Speaker 1: and countries like India and China are growing economically, so
Speaker 1: there's more and more demand for oil, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that oil discoveries have pretty much leveled off or even
Speaker 1: have started to decline. In the United States and in
Speaker 1: many other parts of the world, coal is abundant, while oil,
Speaker 1: as we just discussed, is not. The United States currently
Speaker 1: burns hundreds of millions of tons of coal and its
Speaker 1: power plants every year, and there's thought to be a
Speaker 1: supply of coal that will last for hundreds of years.
Speaker 1: There's coal everywhere in the United States, well not everywhere,
Speaker 1: but in parts of the United States, there is so
Speaker 1: much coal that the amount is virtually unimaginable. What if coal,
Speaker 1: which is abundant, could be turned into oil at a
Speaker 1: cost of perhaps thirty dollars per barrel. That's incredibly inexpensive
Speaker 1: compared to a hundred dollars per barrel, and it would
Speaker 1: have a huge economic impact. That's the idea, This thirty
Speaker 1: dollar a barrel idea behind an invention from the University
Speaker 1: of Texas. It's a micro refinery that has the ability
Speaker 1: to transform solid coal into oil, a liquid hydrocarbon. But
Speaker 1: this invention can do that transformation extremely efficiently, pushing the
Speaker 1: cost of the oil from coal down to thirty dollars
Speaker 1: or so per barrel. How is this possible? Recognize that
Speaker 1: oil consists of hydrocarbons chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen
Speaker 1: atoms attached. So does coal. Coal is made of carbon
Speaker 1: and hydrogen. Except with coal, the carbon molecules form a
Speaker 1: solid because normally there's more carbon than hydrogen available in
Speaker 1: a lump of coal. In anthracite coal, the material is
Speaker 1: almost all carbon. The Germans were able to convert cold
Speaker 1: oil during World War Two using something called the Fisser
Speaker 1: Trops process, which takes all of those carbon atoms in
Speaker 1: coal and adds hydrogen atoms to them to convert the
Speaker 1: coal into a liquid. First, the carbon in the coal
Speaker 1: is reacted with oxygen to form a carbon monoxide gas.
Speaker 1: This is an easy way to move carbon from a
Speaker 1: solid to a gaseous form, and that makes it easier
Speaker 1: to do chemical reactions with it. Hydrogen atoms are made
Speaker 1: from water molecules, The carbon atoms are chained together, and
Speaker 1: the hydrogen atoms are added through a series of catalyzed
Speaker 1: chemical reactions. The University of Texas technology improves the process
Speaker 1: by speeding up the reactions and reducing the amount of
Speaker 1: equipment needed. The result is roughly one and a half
Speaker 1: barrels of oil from one ton of coal, and coal
Speaker 1: costs only eighteen dollars per ton right now in Texas.
Speaker 1: And one advantage of the process is that it can
Speaker 1: be done in small refineries rather than having to build
Speaker 1: billion dollar facilities. This makes it a lot easier to
Speaker 1: deploy the technology and grow it incrementally, rather than needing
Speaker 1: huge investments to get the thing going. The question then
Speaker 1: becomes is this a good idea from an economic standpoint? Clearly,
Speaker 1: it is a good idea. With coal, the United States
Speaker 1: could create its own oil for hundreds of years or
Speaker 1: more and free itself from its dependence on foreign oil.
Speaker 1: But environmentally, many people have grave concerns about cold oil technology,
Speaker 1: also known as liquid coal technology. One reason is the
Speaker 1: amount of water needed, since fresh water is becoming more
Speaker 1: and more scarce as populations of human beings rise and
Speaker 1: as climate changes. The other concern is the amount of
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide created while turning coal into oil. This is
Speaker 1: the same concern that arises when producing oil from tar
Speaker 1: sands and oil shale. What might be a better way
Speaker 1: to address the problem. One proposed solution is oil from algae,
Speaker 1: which we've discussed in several previous podcasts. Algae cells naturally
Speaker 1: contain oil, both as a method of flotation and as
Speaker 1: a way of storing energy. High oiled strains of algae
Speaker 1: can be bred, and those strains of algae are very
Speaker 1: easy to grow. You may have noticed that algae will
Speaker 1: grow in a bucket of water that you leave out
Speaker 1: on your back porch. Then it's relatively easy to extract
Speaker 1: the oil from algae. One way is to simply press
Speaker 1: it out with a big hydraulic press. The advantage of
Speaker 1: oil from algae is that it's a very green process,
Speaker 1: it's sustainable, and it's also something that can be done
Speaker 1: anywhere in the United States. Be sure to check out
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Speaker 1: Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone app
Speaker 1: has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.