http://seekingalpha.com/article/881391-energy-after-the-peak-merger-of-coal-and-refiners-replaces-conventional-oil Energy After The Peak: Merger Of Coal And Refiners Replaces Conventional Oil September 21, 2012 | 58 comments | includes: SUN, VLO, WLB Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I am presently working on several coal to liquid projects. (More...) The chart above shows the number of refineries and their output in North America over time. Its clear following the 1970 oil shock that major integrated oil companies have not invested in refineries. This gave rise to the independent refiners as an important resource in the US. Over half of the refining capacity is now owned by independent refineries. The two largest are; Valero Energy Corp. (VLO): Valero is the largest independent refining company in North America and has a capacity of 3.3 million barrels per day. Sunoco Inc. (SUN): The second largest independent, Sunoco refines 990,000 barrels of crude a day. Performance of these refinery stocks may be due for a powerful comeback! To understand how this might occur, let's look at some recent history and the long term trend in the oil business and how these stocks and others like them might benefit from these changes. Major oil companies have for 40 years now under-invested in refineries, creating an artificial scarcity in oil. Some experts observe, if you do not have crude to run through them, why invest in new refineries? But is that received wisdom true? While it is certainly true that the logistic curve computed for conventional oil production in 1954 is accurate, it is not true that conventional oil is the only energy supply available in sufficient abundance at a competitive cost. We have known since 1911 that hydrogen may be added to coal to produce petroleum products. Frederich Bergius received a Nobel Prize in 1931 for this achievement. Following World War II Truman backed the production of a 200,000 barrel per day coal liquefaction plant based on Bergius' process. IG Farben ceded the technology to the UN as part of War Reparations for Germany. BP (BP) acquired the technology and canvassed the White House to close the Missouri plant. Truman kept it open. The plant sold oil that was competitive in quality and cost with conventional oil. BP persisted and eventually Eisenhower created an energy committee which recommended closure of the plant. When South Africa passed their apartheid policies in 1948, and expanded them in 1950, Saudi Arabia refused to sell oil to that country. As a result, South Africans began developing their coal reserves. BP denied them the use of the Bergius direct hydrogenation process, so South Africa used the inferior Fischer-Tropsch process. Until the Shenhua coal company began construction of a Bergius direct hydrognation reactor, most investors thought wrongly that Fischer-Tropsch was the only way to produce coal and that the liquids produced were the best that could be done. Despite the excellent work of Bergius in 1911, the US has supported billions of dollars in coal research, research that ignores Bergius and finds, surprisingly, the need for more research going forward. The numbers for Bergius are, one metric ton of coal is converted into 6.2 barrels of liquid fuels with the application of 125 kilograms of hydrogen gas. This hydrogen gas may be produced by carrying out a shift reaction with another 375 kilograms of coal and 1,125 liters of water. It may also be produced by a high temperature nuclear reactor by direct thermolysis as suggested by Brookhaven Labs and Westinghouse in 1961. This in response to a request from JFK to find a solution to the problem of oil shortages before the crisis hit. BNL felt that with a dedicated effort, we could have oil at competitive rates of $2 per barrel by 1968 and by 1988 transition to an all hydrogen economy where energy costs were $0.20 per barrel equivalent. Many rosy scenarios were built around an industrial economy with energy that abundant at that price. Now, that's leadership! The report languished on the desk of president Johnson after November 1963 and was eventually forgotten. It was resurrected by Jimmy Carter, a former US Navy nuclear engineer. Unfortunately, the very month Carter submitted his revised plan to Congress three things happened that galvanized the nation. The family of Karen Silkwood received a $5 million wrongful death settlement against Kerr-McGee. Ms. Silkwood processed plutonium pellets at Kerr-McGee's Cimmarron fuel processing site. This got the nation asking the question, just how safe is nuclear power? As the media began grinding out this question to a concerned nation, after thirty years of safe nuclear power, as far as most Americans were concerned at the time, Three Mile Island melted down and released radioactive waste despite assurances previously that this could never happen. Then, finally, as a coup de grace, the hit movie China Syndrome, with Jane Fonda, was released to rave reviews. At the end of this unfortunate sequence of events the result on capitol hill was predictable, the nation will spend any amount of money needed to address the energy issues facing it, it will not consider any solution based on nuclear energy. Over the next decade America spent more money on energy research than it spent going to the moon. The result? More research is needed. Bergius was ignored. That's old technology. Old technology or not, the total cost of producing oil today with Bergius is $8.57 per barrel. At today's prices, this produces a gross profit in excess of $100 per barrel! The US consumes 6.8 billion barrels of oil per year. If we made 6.8 billion barrels from domestic coal we would add over $10 billion per week to our economy. This cash flow may be hypothecated to cover all external debt, and bring sanity back to our economy. We might even consider an oil backed dollar in this case. How might these independent refineries benefit from Bergius' technology? Well, they could convert themselves to domestically sourced integrated oil companies using US coal to make petrol. This could be achieved by merging with an appropriately sized coal mine. Such an announcement would precede a dramatic increase in value of both companies. The impact of such a merger would be large. Consider Westmoreland Coal Company (WLB). It has coal reserves of 389.9 million tons of coal and a market cap of $162.94 million, producing $0.42 of value for each ton of reserves. Now, consider Sunoco, Inc., it has no oil reserves and retails 990,000 barrels of oil per day. As a result, it has a market cap of $4.15 billion and sales of $44.61 billion. Look what happens when we merge these two companies and build a $5.54 billion Bergius reactor to make SUN oil from WLB coal: First, the SEC allows us to value WLB's coal as 2.4 billion barrels of oil at nearly $14 billion - providing tremendous returns straight-away. Next, SUN cost of sales plummet and profits skyrocket, increasing market cap to over $170 billion! (click to enlarge) Obviously, with increased valuation, the company is in a strong position to expand. Other independents will also be inspired to compete. Eventually all of America's 279 billion tons of coal will be valued as 1.8 trillion barrels of notional oil production in the future. This is more than twice the oil left in the world today from conventional sources. A reserve of oil that is worth well over $8.8 trillion in the ground. This vast and rising value forms the basis for further productive expansion of the US' industrial economy for another generation.

http://coaltooil.com/ John M. Kocol is developing CoalToOil.com plants that will use a brand new "game changer" American invented Bennett coal to oil process that is much cleaner than the Fischer-Tropsch process, and CO2 would also be converted to methanol at John M. Kocol's CO2toMethanol.com plants via the Olah CO2 to methanol process. End product from plants, gasoline made from coal and methanol made from CO2 [methanol will be converted to gasoline using ExxonMobil's methanol to gasoline technology], will be sold throughout the U.S. and Mexico at John M. Kocol's USMEXenergy.com gasoline stations, resulting in American and Mexican energy independence! COAL-->CoalToOil.com plants-->OIL,GAS, CO2-->SUN, WATER, CO2-->CO2toMethanol.com plants-->METHANOL-->USMEXenergy.com gasoline stations that will sell gasoline made from coal and renewable methanol throughout the U.S. and Mexico Converting CO2 to methanol is synergistic for coal to oil conversion by making it a clean, renewable source of fuel. Meanwhile, pumping CO2 underground according to John M. Kocol is extremely unsafe, for what do you do when the CO2 begins to leak into our clean drinking water and into our air? Read "Coal-to-oil raises long-term environmental questions despite plans to capture CO2" by Willow Belden, Wyoming Public Radio, 2/10/12. Synonymous coal-to-oil terms: coal conversion, coal gasification, coal hydrogenation, coal liquefaction, coal-to-crude oil, coal-to-diesel, coal-to-fuel, coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquid fuel, coal-to-liquids (CTL), coal-to-oil, coal-to-petroleum, liquid coal, methanol-to-gasoline (MTG), underground coal gasification (UCG). Did you know that oil can be made from coal? According to former Department of Energy (DOE) scientist Richard Wolfe, "oil also can be extracted from coal. In fact, oil extraction is the first step toward producing diesel fuel and then gas. Coal is oil before it becomes coal." (Bristol Herald Courier, June 8, 2008, "Inventor Claims To Have Developed ‘Super Clean’ Coal" by Michael Owens). John M. Kocol wrote about using deep unmineable coal seams for underground coal gasification (UCG) (coal2oil conversion process that takes place underground) in What's Next In Science & Technology: "Storing carbon dioxide in deep coal seams could also provide useful methane gas,"06/27/07. HISTORICAL ANALYSIS Below courtesy CleanCoal.com.au: Coal to Oil [CoalToOil.com] (Coal 2 Oil) Explained. The lack of stability in the Middle East and demand pressures from India and China has caused dramatic increases in the price of oil which has affected the global economy. However there are alternative resources that can be used for the production of oil – the main ones being black and brown coal. It just so happens that Australia and particularly the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland Basin in Victoria have some 500+ years of low cost, low sulfur, high moisture Brown Coal that is ideal for (coal2oil) conversion to quality gasoline, aviation fuel and carbon fibers. The history of "Coal 2 Oil" is not unlike the VHS v Beta phenomena whereby Beta had the best tape product but marketing and circumstances of the day lead VHS to dominate as the commercial product of choice. In coal-to-oil (coal2oil) there are two main technologies – 1) Fischer-Tropsch (VHS) & 2) Bergius Hydrogenation (Beta) ECT’s unique de-watering ‘Coldry’ process is applicable to both (coal to oil) technologies; however we are proposing to pursue the 2nd and less popular coal-to-oil (coal2oil) Hydrogenation process which has been developed by the Japanese after many years of testing using Brown Coal from the Latrobe Valley (1988-95). (John M. Kocol favors the American invented coal-to-oil Karrick process over the Fischer-Tropsch and the Bergius coal-to-oil conversion processes). Why are we choosing the less proven (coal to oil) process? The reported differences between the (coal2oil) processes show that Hydrogenation has a higher yield of petroleum per tonne of coal, lower cost and lower greenhouse output than its Fischer-Tropsch (coal to oil) counterpart. Below is an outline of the general (coal2oil) processes and the different products produced: Fischer – Tropsch (coal to oil) Synthesis (as used by SASOL South Africa) Fischer – Tropsch Natural SynGas (GTL) Fischer – Tropsch BTL (Biomass to Liquid) Fischer – Tropsch CTL Coal to Liquid (coal2oil) Bergius Hydrogenation Process (Liquefaction "coal2oil" Japanese Style) Coal To Liquids (CTL) (coal to oil) v Current Crude Oil Refineries CTL (coal to oil) Production Costs Latest News - Japan Ready to Move on Coal Liquefaction (coal2oil) Fischer – Tropsch Synthesis. This (coal2oil) technology evolved in 1925 when Professor Franz Fischer, founding director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute of Coal Research in Germany and his head of department, Dr Hans Tropsch, patented a (coal to oil) process to produce liquid hydrocarbons from carbon monoxide gas and hydrogen using metal catalysts. The hydrocarbons synthesized in the process were made primarily of liquid alkenes (paraffin’s). Other by-products were olefins (basis of all poly plastics & fibers), alcohols, and solid paraffin’s (waxes). The required gas mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen - the so called synthesis gas - is created through a reaction of coke or coal with steam and oxygen, at temperatures over 900 degrees C. In the past, town gas and gas for lamps were a carbon monoxide-hydrogen mixture, made by gasifying coke in gas works. In the 1970’s it was replaced with imported natural gas (methane). Coal gasification (coal2oil) and Fischer-Tropsch (German coal2oil conversion process) hydrocarbon synthesis together bring about a two-stage sequence of reactions which allows the production (conversion of coal to oil) of liquid fuels like diesel and petrol out of solid combustible black coal. For indirect coal liquefaction (coal2oil), Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis can be used on all types of coal as well as other raw materials which contain coal. Fischer-Tropsch (turning coal-to-oil [CoalToOil.com]) Synthesis took its first serious place in industry in 1935 at Celanese AG chemical company. By the beginning of the 1940s, some 600,000 tonnes of liquid hydrocarbons were produced per year in German facilities, made from coal using Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis. Just prior to WW II Germany licensed the (coal2oil) process to four facilities in Japan, as well as a plant in France and in Manchuria. After WW II, the destruction of most of the (coal2oil) production plants and competition from Middle East crude oil made petrol production from coal unprofitable. The only new (coal to oil) production facilities built were in South Africa in 1950 in Sasolburg (hence the brand name SASOL). These (coal to oil) plants were government backed for political reasons (the apartheid era). Currently, the two (coal-to-oil) plants operated by SASOL represent about 28 % of South Africa's diesel and petrol needs, processing some 45 million tonnes of black coal per year. Fischer – Tropsch Natural SynGas (GTL) Syngas can also be created from natural gas and is less costly than making it from coal. Since 1993, Shell in Malaysia (Bintulu) and PetroSA in South Africa (Mossel Bay) have been operating industrial (coal2oil) Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis facilities, which produce liquid fuels from syngas (Gas To Liquid, GTL). A third similar plant is being built by SASOL and Qatar Petroleum in Qatar in the Persian Gulf. In 2005, nine more GTL-facilities were being planned world-wide; most of them using Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis. Fischer – Tropsch BTL (Biomass to Liquid) For a number of years German companies have been developing processes to create liquid fuels from biomass (Biomass to Liquid, BTL) the most notable among them being Future Energy GmbH which uses Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis. The syngas is produced from wood, straw, and other raw materials of plant origin. Fischer – Tropsch CTL (Coal to Liquid). In 2006 (in 2011 many more coal2oil plants are being planned) the first US coal-to-diesel production facility is planned in Gilberton, Pennsylvania (ultracleanfuels.com). It will use indirect coal liquefaction (CTL), via coal gasification and Fischer-Tropsch. China, too, has been investing in (coal to oil) technology using indirect Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis / black coal. Significantly in 2002 China began planning a commercial coal liquefaction (coal2oil) plant using the Japanese version of the Bergius /coal hydrogenation (coal2oil) process in Inner Mongolia with commissioning expected in 2008. Bergius Hydrogenation Process (Liquefaction Japanese Style) The second method (direct coal liquefaction "coal2oil") was invented a few years before Fischer-Tropsch, in 1913 in Hanover by Friedrich Bergius. Coal hydrogenation (coal2oil), aka coal liquefaction (coal to oil), involves converting coal into an oil (like crude oil), that can be processed in refineries to make petrol. The Bergius (coal to oil) process, however, works best with Brown Coal and "geologically young" black coal. (Coal To Oil) v Current Crude Oil Refineries Coal liquefaction by whichever route, is capital intensive and therefore benefits substantially from economies of scale. Most studies on process economics have assumed that a full-scale commercial (coal2oil) plant would produce 50,000 - 100,000 bbl/day of liquid products. Such a plant would process 15,000 - 35,000 tonnes/day of black coal or up to double that amount of brown coal. Since coal is more difficult to transport than oil, it would, as a general principle, be better for coal-to-oil (CoalToOil.com) to be carried out in the country of origin and preferably close to the resource. (Coal to oil) Production Costs The use of the Hydrogenation (coal to oil) process and low cost brown coal (USD $4/t) and ECT’s front end ‘Coldry’ drying / de-watering process is predicted to achieve a (coal2oil) production cost of around USD$25 - $30 per barrel (crude oil equivalent) which is a remarkable improvement over the last couple of decades costs. Production costs for the Fischer-Tropsch (coal to oil) process using mainly black coal are purported to be around USD$40+/barrel. Latest News - Japan Ready to Move on Coal Liquefaction (coal2oil) The following information comes from NEDOL Japan who did much of this work in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria. Announcement on June 12 in Tokyo advised: “Japan plans to provide Asian nations – particularly China – with the technology to liquefy coal (convert coal to oil) as part of a broader effort to reduce global dependence on crude oil.” Through NEDOL they will join with Chinese (coal to oil conversion) companies (including Shenhua) “and plan to have a (coal2oil) plant operating by around 2010.” “Construction costs are estimated at 100b Yen (USD877m).” “Japan has also entered into (coal2oil) talks with the Indonesian government”… “Japan was also considering operating (coal to oil plants) in India and Mongolia.” FAQ Q: Are any companies turning coal2oil? A: Here are companies that are using or developing clean coal to oil technology: Baard Energy BP Chevron Texaco CIC Energy Corp Coal India Ltd coal2oil.com Conoco Phillips Consol Energy Inc Dakota Gasification Company Eastman Chemical Company Emery Energy Company Ergo Exergy Excelsior Energy ExxonMobil Gail India Ltd GE Energy Gasification Group Global Resource Corp Great Point Energy Green Rock Energy LLC Headwaters Linc Energy Ltd Metex Resources Ltd Mississippi Power Company Oil and Natural Gas Limited (ONGC) Peabody Energy Pertamina Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Rentech Sasol Sasol Chevron Shell Shenhua Group Silverado Green Fuel Inc Sinopec Syntroleum WMPI Q: How much coal is needed to make 1 barrel of oil? A: 1/2 ton of coal makes 1 barrel of oil. Q: Why use coal-to-oil or CO2-to-Methanol conversion instead of ethanol? A: Alternative sources (ethanol, wind, water) are unreliable. Please read Harvard Magazine, November-December 2006, "The Ethanol Illusion" by Michael B. McElroy, and U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 12, 2007, "Overselling Ethanol" by Marianne Lavelle and Bret Schulte. Also see the Pickens Plan which supports converting coal to oil. Converting coal to oil is now cheaper, and the coal to oil technology is more efficient. With increased ethanol demand, a food price spike has followed. Therefore, the solution to the predicament that we find ourselves in is to find a way to make more clean energy without using food. Turning coal-to-oil and carbon dioxide-to-methanol is the way to make more clean fuel. Using ethanol which is a corn based fuel for transportation is one of the reasons why we have a global food crisis. According to India's finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, "When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels." Washington Times, April 23, 2008, "Not by bread alone" by Arnaud de Borchgrave. Also read Washington Times, May 6, 2008, "The rise and fall of ethanol" by Times editorial staff. Q: How many gallons are there in 1 metric ton of gasoline? A: 380 gallons = 1 MT of gasoline. ____ CoalToOil.com and CO2toMethanol.com are USMEXenergy.com companies.

timid, not for the easily discouraged. 26 May 2009 Peak Oil: Meet Clear Coal Update 11 June 09: A reader emailed to request contact information for Coal Sack Energy. It seems he has some investors who want to back the company but cannot find a way to invest. Is it possible that Barak Obama -- who promised to bankrupt the coal companies -- has decided to block all access to investing in new coal technology? Just kidding. More likely, the company listed below is playing hard to get, for reasons of its own. So be careful when you invest. Some things sound too good to be true because they aren't.Brian Westenhaus gives us a look at a promising new treatment for coal and other carbon sources, Clear Coal. This process claims to remove all mercury and almost all sulfur from the coal in the process of increasing the available energy. The technology is claimed to make it possible to convert any type or grade of coal, including scrap coal, oil shale, tar sands, etc., into three basic by-products char, synthetic oil and gas - through one integrated process. Greg Boyd, 47, is the more youthful leader of CoalSack Energy. Asked by Bob McCarty for a 60-second spiel to a prospect Boyd answers with some interesting numbers. “I’d say we have a patent on low-temperature carbonization which takes out 99.2 percent of the sulfur from a ton of coal,” Boyd explained. “The mercury is not even measurable. We’re raising the BTUs by upwards of 40 percent, averaging between 28 and 40 percent. With the same ton of coal, we’re producing the highest grade of light sweet crude oil which can be turned into Jet A fuel and that we’re getting about 7,000 cubic feet of gas.” ...Using a low temperature carbonization process, we are able to carefully control internal temperature ranges inside a roasting unit called a Coal Carbonization Module or CCM™ to vaporize the contaminate elements contained within coal. These vaporized elements are then transported to tanks using steam, whereupon they are condensed into their natural, uncontaminated forms. We are able to produce the nearly contaminate-free char, synthetic oil, and synthetic gasses that are sold to industrial markets, such as refined into Coke for steel production, used for electricity production, or refined into liquid fuels like gasoline, diesel, and Jet A. The carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide production is also converted into liquid fuel, and injected into the product stream where it is sold as a value-added product. Those four products are interesting. The char is a clean burning smokeless boiler fuel, which can be used for electricity and heat production. The char may also be used in the production of steel and activated charcoal products including filters and carbon fiber. Char has a higher BTU range than coal, 12MBTU/lb – 14MBTU/lb, making it more valuable per ton. Utilities using char as a fuel source become carbon creditors, and could eliminate expensive flue gas scrubbing units. _NewEnergyandFuel This is an intriguing promise. The process purportedly removes pollutants, incorporates all carbon -- including CO and CO2 -- into useful fuel, and turns low grade "junk coal" into high grade fuels and fuels precursors. I would like to see how it works on bitumens and kerogens, as well as dried compacted biomass. Despite what you may have heard from your peak oil friends, the energy game is just getting started. Only an incompetent political reich can thrust civilisation into abject energy scarcity -- "political peak oil".

http://ecopolitology.org/2009/05/19/clear-coal-not-the-same-as-clean-coal/ Clear Coal: Not the Same as Clean Coal 0 Comments and 0 Reactions by Timothy Hurst on May 19, 2009 More Sharing Services 0 inShare coalsack-ccm [On a recent trip to the Western Slope of Colorado, I had the opportunity to meet Bob McCarty who publishes at BobMcCarty.com. While our politics may differ on many issues, our fascination for the politics and technology of energy may not be as diametric. Bob sent me this post he first published last week to see if I would like to run it elsewhere. I don't know anything about the process described below, nor do I endorse it. But, as is the case with other liquid coal technologies, my concern is that the process all but ignores the carbon content of coal, while emphasizing the cleaning of sulfur and mercury from the product.] By Bob McCarty During a recent flight from Denver to Grand Junction, Colo., I found myself sitting next to Harold L. Bennett, a 78-year-old civil engineer from Albuquerque. In addition to being on his way to a business meeting in Vernal, Utah, Bennett was on his way to securing the nation’s energy future. Before the 55-minute journey on the twin-prop aircraft ended, I learned three important things from Bennett: First, I learned he has held the patent on the world’s only Clear Coal™ — not “clean coal” — technology since the early 1970s and has improved it twice; Second, I learned his technology makes it possible to convert any type or grade of coal, including scrap coal, oil shale, tar sands, etc., into three basic by-products — char, synthetic oil and gas — through one integrated process; and Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I learned the potential of this little-known technology is huge, especially in light of the current economic situation and increasing demand for clean energy. I also learned that 55 minutes was not enough time to soak up every detail about Clear Coal™, so I took Bennett’s advice and set up a telephone interview with Greg Boyd. Boyd, 47, is the de facto leader of Phoenix-based CoalSack Energy, Inc., a fledgling company launched four months ago with the express goal of taking the groundbreaking technology to market. He spoke with me for 40 minutes Wednesday afternoon during an interview that began with my request for him to role play. “You’re in an elevator,” I explained, “when a man wearing a solid-gold ‘I love coal’ button on the lapel of his suit jacket steps into the elevator with you. Share with me the 30-second message you would share with him about CoalSack Energy and Clear Coal™ technology.” Initially balking at the time limit available, he opened up when given more time (i.e., 60 seconds): “I’d tell him we have a patent on low-temperature carbonization which takes out 99.2 percent of the sulfur (from a ton of coal),” Boyd explained. “The mercury is not even measurable. We’re raising the BTU by upwards of 40 percent, averaging between 28 and 40 percent. With the same ton of coal, we’re producing the highest grade of light sweet crude oil which can be turned into Jet A fuel and that we’re getting about 7,000 cubic feet of gas.” Expanding on the “elevator speech,” he explained that Clear Coal™ technology is good for an environment in which pollutants like sulfur and mercury are becoming big problems, expensive to combat. “Scrubbers cost 100 to 200 million (dollars) a copy,” he explained. “At the same time, when (coal) goes through the scrubber, all of the sulfur ash drops out the bottom and all the mercury goes down there. “So what are you gonna do with that? If you can’t separate it, it has to go to some hazardous waste landfill. “Conversely,” he said, “You can’t even measure the mercury after we process the coal.” For a process that produces one barrel of crude per ton of coal, the potential — there’s that word again — becomes enormous, especially in terms of energy security. “In the U.S. last year, I think we were in the neighborhood of 1.5 billion tons of coal use,” Boyd explained. “If we were cleaning a percentage of that, say 10 percent, that’s 185 million barrels a year (and) that could make a huge dent.” Asked whether his five-person company has any competition, Boyd responded with the type of answer only the head of a company marketing revolutionary technology can give with a straight face. old-coal-tech“We don’t have any competition,” he said before going on to say that companies trying to operate in the same arena with CoalSack Energy have been able to remove only 60 percent of the impurities and have had problems with combustion taking place during transport of byproducts. One might think that a company with such revolutionary technology and no competition would be going “gangbusters” from the start, but that’s not necessarily the case with CoalSack Energy. “We’re so new with an awesome process,” Boyd explained, “we just need to get a couple million dollars of operating capital — perhaps from an investment banking firm or a coal producer or maybe a utility — and start putting up our own facilities, and then taking Clear Coal™ technology to the public market.” In recent weeks, Boyd has met with representatives of two “big fish” entities — a commodity hedge fund and a statewide utility — that have expressed interest in the technology. While every contact with entities like those is valuable, he knows that other issues must be addressed in order to make a “go” of the company. “What we really need is a CEO,” Boyd said, saying he hopes one day soon to be able to draw upon his diverse professional experience in the world of finance and focus on business development and trading of byproducts produced via the carbonization process. “We need someone who has a huge Rolodex®, who can call the CEO at Duke Energy, who has experience at this and can really guide the ship.”

First American, a YHI Company, Successfully Demonstrates World’s First Clean Coal-to-Oil Process Posted on September 21, 2012 | Leave a comment Paradise Valley, Ariz — While the rest of the world was having a normal weekday Aug. 28, a small group of business, military and community leaders gathered at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, N.M. to witness one of the most significant developments in the energy and fuel-production industries of, perhaps, the century. First American International LLC unveiled a working model of the Bennett coal-to- oil conversion process, opening up a world of possibilities to environmentally safe fuel production and coal usage. Coal-to-oil is not new. Two German scientists in the 1920s first accomplished what would become widely known as the Fischer-Tropsch process. But Fischer-Tropsch, which burns coal at extreme temperatures, under very high pressures, is extremely inefficient, costly and produces an environmental catastrophe in its wake. FAI Managing Partner Dennis Yellowhorse Jones sought to eliminate at the demonstration all notions that the Bennett Process resembles Fischer-Tropsch in any other way except that they both produce oil from coal. “The most important fact you must remember … is that this is not Fischer-Tropsch,” Yellowhorse Jones told the audience, which included Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly, among other leaders. The Bennett Process is patented as of 2011 as its own distinct coal-to-oil method. Its inventor, Harold Bennett, also attended the demonstration and explained the unique way his method works. Bennett has worked on the project since he was tapped by the President Jimmy Carter’s administration in the 1970s to find a clean way to utilize coal as a wider fuel source. The Bennett Process slowly heats coal – not burning it – with steam to separate from it a thick tar that can be refined into diesel, jet and other fuels, and char, which can be burned as “smokeless” fuel in the energy industry or processed further into metallurgical coke. Gases captured during the process can be processed for used for a variety purposes, including industrial chemicals. Because of its near-100-percent efficiency, the Bennett Process produces no negative environmental impact, vastly distancing it from Fischer-Tropsch. Financial returns are also much faster, months versus years, or never, with Fischer-Tropsch. The demonstration was a success and guests saw firsthand the tar from a sample of coal pouring from a spout on the machine and the leftover char.