Re: RE: Oil sources OT (sort of)

From: jon@dakota-truck.net
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 15:52:41 EST


"Bernd D. Ratsch" <bernd@texas.net> wrote:
: But something to think about:

: Germany made Synthetic Gasoline during WWII when supply lines were
: "allegedly" cut (and the fuel was working too)...why can the US do that?
: Heck, we've got the resources and are already using synthetic oils in
: just about everything on our vehicles...what's the problem?

    The US has done that... Actually, the US was producing synthetic
oil almost 100 years before the Nazis even came to be, and the basic
process of synthesizing oil started in England during the late 1700s.
In fact, prior to Edwin Drake drilling the first oil well in PA in 1859,
the entire US oil supply was synthetic. There are a couple of common
ways to synthesize oil, both of which involve extracting it from coal.

   At the time that Nazi Germany was producing synthetic gasoline,
it was 4 to 5 times more expensive to produce as compared to refining
from drilled oil. The much cheaper cost of drilled oil pretty much
eliminated the synthesis of oil on any sort of large scale until the
Nazis were basically forced to re-institute the practice due to the
dwindling supply lines. (They did have oil wells also but not enough
to satisfy demand.) With today's more advanced technology, it might be
much cheaper now. Here's an interesting article I stumbled across
which claims that oil can essentially be extracted from coal for "free"
as a by-product:

http://www.rexresearch.com/karrick/karric~1.htm

   I don't have the time or knowledge to be able to say wether all
of the details in the above article are true or not so I will just
pass on the link without comment.

-- 

-Jon-

.---- Jon Steiger ------ jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com ------. | I'm the: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA. Rec & UL Pilot - SEL | | 70 Cuda, 90 Dak 'vert, 92 Ram 4x4, 96 Dak, 96 Intruder 1400, 96 FireFly | `------------------------------------------ http://www.jonsteiger.com ----'



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