From: John Cuccia 

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 13:04:31 -0400, "Tony Ingenoso"
 wrote:

>If you're talking coal you are.  The tar/shale stuff is heavy enough it
>might as well be building from scratch.
>
>I have no idea where you think the raw materiels for synth are going to come
>from.

Current development appears to be focused on GTL (natural Gas-To-Liquids)
technology plants to produce fuels.  The base process is derived from some
of that German synfuel research you mentioned.

I've also seen mention of ethanol-to-gasoline processes, but I'm guessing
that those are part of the ethanol additive boondoggle.

The point if this, however, is that the big oil companies (which are
*far* from being mere transporters) have the resources to work in
these areas.  They are either doing or subsidizing much of the current research.

Here's a pretty good summary of GTL work.  It looks like it's from 1999 or
2000, so may be a bit dated.

http://www.chemlink.com.au/gtl.htm

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