glenn, the oil industry is in fact doing quite a bit in the developement of alternative fuels. As you point out, they see the implications to their long term survival. If you notice some of the current ads from BP, & Exxon/Mobil, they both talk about their working in that area. In doing some research on Don's comments about the Sasol process I see where Chevron has partnered with Sasol. And I'm sure there are others. I suspect that their priority is in liquid fuels since they already have a storage, and distribution system in place which would make the outcomes more practical.

Don, part of the point of this thread is for others, such as you've done here, to bring up other concepts and technologies. But as the thread title extolls, to each of these technologies there is cost and, in some cases, impediments to developement. Also, you cause me to do research into less familiar areas which I enjoy. Based on what I've read about Sasol's process it's fairly expensive comparitively. They have stated objectives of figuring out ways to lower the processing costs to be more competitive. The biggest bugaboo they point to recently (obviously prior to the current upswing in crude prices) was the low cost of crude. I didn't dig deep enough to find where the price of crude needs to reach to make their current configuration competitive, but maybe we're near that point. Two situations that need to be kept in mind though. It appears that natural gas is needed in their feed stream in addition to coal. Plus they need to produce oxygen. While technically feasible, all of these extra steps increase the production cost of the finished product. And we've already talked about our domestic limitations on natural gas supplies. Which in turn means their plants need to be where the gas is, which means more transportation cost for the finished product. Also, it seems that 80% of the output of their process is diesel fuel. Albeit high quality, low sulphur diesel fuel, but, at current market conditions, not our highest priority.

Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. It contributes to part of the message I've tried to get across by starting this thread. There is no silver bullet. No single process, no magic potion that will instantly cure our needs. Very likely our future energy requirements will be satisfied by a variety of these alternatives, used as a mix to meet market demand. Most likely costs will be higher because the technology to produce these alternatives is higher by a variety of multiples than the traditional crude processing mechanisms. As many of the sites I visited indicated, the Sasol process, for example though not alone, so far, hasn't been competive cost wise on a large scale. They too have operated with government subsidy. And that's still the key. There can be an infinite number of wonderful and creative solutions, but will they be cost competitive?