Methanol

August 7, 2008

EPA Denies Texas Request to Cut National Biofuels Mandate In Half for a Year

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

To be honest, we nearly decided not to report the following development, because as anyone who has paid the slightest attention to EPA Administer Stephen Johnson (right) the past year knows, he was as likely to approve Texas's request to halve the 2008 renewable fuel standard as he was to appear before the Washington press corps in a yellow polka-dot bikini.

In denying the state's request to cut the national biofuels mandate in half for a year, Johnson -- a Bush appointee -- said today that the renewable fuel standard "is strengthening the nation's energy security and supporting America's farming communities."

The mandate "will remain an important tool in our ongoing effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lessen our dependence on foreign oil in aggressive yet practical ways," he said.

Texas Governor Rick Perry asked EPA to lower the 2008 renewable fuel standard from 9 billion gallons to 4.5 billion gallons, saying the mandate was spurring skyrocketing food and feed costs and hurting his state's economy.

Politically, rubbing some Texans the wrong way given that the state can be counted on to vote Republican anyway is a small price to pay compared to losing campaign contributions from the agriculture industry and votes from swing states where agriculture is big business.

Posted by: Permalink | Comments (2); Scott Doggett August 7, 2008, 12:25 PM
Categories:: Alternative Fuels, Biofuels, Emissions, Ethanol, Flex-Fuel, Fuel Economy, Legislation, Methanol
Technorati Tags:: EPA

July 31, 2008

Nation's First Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Plant on Fast Track

With almost daily announcements of initiatives aimed at chopping the price of fuel at America's pumps, West Virginia, one of the nation's most prolific coal-producing states, is making a serious move to leverage the lumpy black stuff for transportation fuel by fast-tracking construction of a commercial-scale plant utilizing a proven coal-to-gasoline process.

The coal-to-liquids plant, which will be the first in the U.S., could be up and running as quickly as three years from now, according to published reports, at a cost of some $800 million.

The planned facility is in Marshall County, located not far from the major cities of Pittsburgh and Cleveland in the state's Northern Panhandle. It will be operated in a joint venture between Pittsburgh-based Consol Energy Inc. and Houston's Synthesis Energy Systems Inc.

The plant will employ standard coal and waste coal from a nearby Consol mine and could draw on coal from two other nearby mines.

The joint venture, called Northern Appalachia Fuels LLC, will employ SES's U-Gas process to gasify coal to synthetic gas then convert it to methanol, the primary product of the process.

Synthetic Energy then uses its proprietary methanol-to-gasoline process to convert the methanol to gasoline. The company is negotiating with Exxon-Mobil Research and Engineering to license the process.