Guest post by David Archibald
Ira Glickstein’s post promoting clean coal has prompted me to offer a few slides from a presentation I had prepared. One of the things that gets me about clean coal is that the same people who are urging restraint are quite happy to halve the life of our coal reserves.
My thesis is that the rising oil price will drive inter-fuel substitution to the highest value markets, which are those transport applications that require a high-density liquid fuel with good storage characteristics – essentially diesel and jet fuel. Coal will be substituted for oil into the transport fuels market. That in turn will make it too valuable to burn for power generation, in which nuclear will substitute for coal. I am a thorium nut as well as a coal-to-liquids (CTL) proponent. The nuclear industry has financed a lot of the AGW hysteria, as they saw this as the only way they could sell nuclear plants against coal. They needn’t have bothered. At the current oil price and above, coal is diesel that is waiting to go through a CTL plant. At US$120 per barrel, it becomes worthwhile to close existing coal-fired power generation and replace it with nuclear, taking the hit on the capital charge of the idled coal plant.
Some people call for US energy independence but have no practical idea of how that could be achieved. Others, strangely, rail against the concept. So, here follows a plan for US energy independence by 2020. The technology exists and it is costed and affordable.
phlogiston says:
January 2, 2011 at 9:58 am
I am not in favour of the solid phase thorium reactors such as THTR and the Indians’. The issue is the optimum handling of protactinium while waiting for it to decay to U233. A liquid reactor has many advantages. On breeding from U238, it has to be in the fast neutron spectrum and using liquid sodium. The Russians have had a fast breeder operating happily for decades – the BN 600 reactor at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station, in Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Oblast. Attempts at building sodium-cooled fast breeder reactors in the US, Japan and France have been less successful. Plutonium-burning fast breeder reactors also generate some transuranics – Americium, Curium and Neptunium – which would have to be disposed of thoughtfully. The best way to dispose of these transuranics would be to use them as fuel in molten salt reactors. We could get plutonium fast breeders to work happily enough if that was all there was, but we have thorium which is better.
There is a vast difference in high level waste production between LWR technology and thorium. One gigawatt year from a LWR reactor produces 255 kg of transuranics, from a thorium reactor it would be 30 grams. This is one ten thousandth of the level. When we get thorium reactors up and running, we will be wondering why we ever bothered with the LWR route. LWR reactors are another artefact from the Cold War. But then all the peak scientific bodies in the western world believe in global warming, showing how irrational they are.
A couple of things about the cost of nuclear. Current designs get their passive safety by having an enormous reinforced concrete vessel that can take a large steam explosion, with redundant backup passive cooling. Because the passive containment costs so much now, they decided to get economies of scale by making the reactors bigger. So units used to be 300 MW, and they are now 1,000 or 1,600 MW. Building nuclear reactors now is like ordering a car and having it assembled in your backyard. That is another part of the promise of thorium – building them in a Boeing-like factory setting and shipping them out on barges.
Max Hugoson says:
January 2, 2011 at 7:16 am
I won’t retract it, I will re-affirm it. The CDIAC is the official contribution from the US nuclear establishment to the AGW scare. I suggest that you go to their website and have a good look around, and wonder why they were doing their tree growth tests with astronomic amounts of ozone.
Ralph says:
January 2, 2011 at 10:53 am
About the only use for hydrogen I can think of is as a way to make wind turbines useful. Hydrogen for chemical processing, for example upgrading the Alberta tar sands bitumen to something than can be processed by a US refinery, comes from cracking natural gas. The natural gas price, even in the US, will go to the oil price because of the pull from the transport sector. So hydrogen is going to become very expensive. If hydrolysis using the intermittent power from wind turbines is cheap enough, that might make wind turbines finally useful.
That reminds me of another thing. The heat for steam flooding in the Alberta tar sands currently comes from burning things that burn. There had been a proposal to build a couple of nuclear plants in the tar fields to provide steam for steam flooding. Given that the product would then be shipped to the US, the US gasoline vehicle fleet would be in part nuclear-powered.
Stan Kormac says:
January 2, 2011 at 12:25 pm
When world oil production starts falling by 2 million barrels per day, by mid-decade at the latest, the world as you know it will change dramatically. At $200/barrel, the cost of producing food rises by at least 50%. The food price riots in Mexico and Egypt caused by the corn to ethanol scam were just a dry run for what is going to happen on a continuous basis just a few short years away.
Timothy H Wiley says:
January 2, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Thank you. That is why I included the US Nuclear Industry Capacity Factors chart. It took three decades for US commercial nuclear plants to be run professionally. Now that the right culture is in place, the industry can be expanded. There is more than enough pain coming for the EPA, Sierra Club etc to be swept aside. The US public will see China keeping the lights on while they freeze or sweat in the dark.
“New” nuclear technologies are old-hat. Argonne National Laboratories developed the Integral Fast Reactor, which had many safety features….however, the Clinton administration killed off this very promising system. See:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99xx7.htm
Disposal of radioactive materials, including decommisioned reactors & whatever wastes that cannot be refined, remains an obstacle. The termination of the Yucca Mountain repository was a national tragedy, and despite all the advantages of nuclear, I don’t believe it will lead to a renaissance.
Policy makers are chasing a dream = free solar energy, sustainable fuels etc. A lot of that can be utilized, but unless there are some significant breakthroughs, it is fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Stuff like corn ethanol, which was a dream of the left and their political supporters (Hello, Iowa!), is showing itself to be an expensive scam. On we go, Happy 2011!
Paul Piva says:
January 2, 2011 at 3:08 pm
“Has anyone come up with a decent solution for handling and storing for the long term, nuclear waste?”
A 1,000 MW Nuclear reactor produces about 20 cubic meters(700 cubic feet) of high level waste per year. With recycling that is reduced to 3 cubic meters(105 cubic feet).
A large Dump Truck is 729 cubic feet.
A Ford F-150 pickup truck bed is 135 cubic feet.
A 1,000 MW coal fired electricity plant consumes about 30,000 rail cars worth of coal per year. Coal is radioactive as well.
@george Turner & The Grey Monk
Nice answers. It sounds like things have progressed. However, DME has a low boiling point (-23 C) which, despite the fact that a diesel engine will run with the stuff, a diesel storage tank is going to have to be pressurized, like engines that run off LPG. I see from the Livermore U.S. energy chart (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/LLNL_US_Energy_Flow_2009.png) that about 7 quads of energy from petroleum are going to industrial uses. Is this all plastics feedstock, and, could coal liquification replace this and at what cost (i.e. why hasn’t it already)?
You guys should get together and write something for the site on this topic (I’d read it). Has anyone written on what price-point coal & Saudi crude have to be in order to make coal conversion cost effective?
Joe Lalonde says:
January 2, 2011 at 6:44 am
Yeah, I know. It’s really sad – radial ply tires would have been so great, but we’re still stuck with bias ply tires, with their poor tread wear and rolling resistance so people have to replace them every 15,000 miles or so.
Ditto cars – 83,000 miles was sort of the limit for our cars in Ohio before the body rusted out (1960s or so). Detroit doesn’t care, they liked us buying the new style every few years.
The only European cars that were a concern were the VW bugs bought by hippies and poor college students. They’ll come around and buy muscle cars and station wagons soon enough.
</sarc>
It can be surprising how quickly big companies can come crashing down. International Harvester is one that comes to mind even though I never learned all the details.
You’d think there ought to be a Chinese company willing to compete with Siemens.
LazyTeenager says:
January 2, 2011 at 12:14 am
David enthuses
——–
I am a thorium nut as well as a coal-to-liquids (CTL) proponent.
——–
I would like to believe this.
BUT
The last design for a thorium reactor presented here had a molten salt transfer loop.
I would make a wild guess and suggest that molten salts are seriously corrosive. If this guess is correct it makes for some seriously challenging technical problems. As in it would eat the pipe work in nothing flat.
Re: bob says:
January 2, 2011 at 4:14 pm
“The United States of America is energy independent in the generation of electric power , now! It is generated by coal, nuclear, natural gas, and very little petroleum.”
A big “Amen” to Bob! Approximately 1.5% of total oil, both imported and domestic, is used for electric power generation.
LazyTeenager says:
January 2, 2011 at 12:14 am
I know you’re a lazy teenager, (well, I know you’re lazy), but take the 55 minutes to watch http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/01/us-energy-independence-by-2020/#comment-563978 – the speaker had some figures that showed ThF wasn’t corrosive to the materials to be used.
Perhaps you can hunt down a source for that and refute it. He also mentioned that there are industrial processes that use molten salts already, find out what they are too, please.
davidmhoffer says:
January 1, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Once upon a time SciAm would have deserved the reference for an article like that. A more recent report than McBride’s is at http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html and is well worth reading. We (world-wide) release 15,000 tons of Thorium in coal fly ash each year. It notes “Consequently, the energy content of nuclear fuel released in coal combustion is more than that of the coal consumed!”
If the coal power plant industry had to run their operations as cleanly as the atomic industry, they’d have a huge waste disposal problem and very expensive solutions.
Regarding Nuclear companies showing up green, energy companies will hedge their bets. So if noise is made for renewables, they will put a bit of money there. It’s a “just in case” kind of thing. PACs do the same thing. They contribute to both sides of the political scene, “just in case”.
Stan Kormac says:
January 2, 2011 at 12:25 pm
“Look how much we accomplished during the last decade. We went backward rapidly, squandering money in wars and pockets of those who run the financial sector. In the history of the world all countries where financial capitalism took hold were in the twilight of their eminence.”
Okay, where are those countries that socialism took hold in been going? Don’t point to China, they haven’t yet learned that a capitalist Trojan Horse has been let in.
Stan Kormac says:
January 2, 2011 at 12:25 pm
“Look how much we accomplished during the last decade. We went backward rapidly, squandering money in wars and pockets of those who run the financial sector. In the history of the world all countries where financial capitalism took hold were in the twilight of their eminence.”
Okay, where have those countries that socialism took hold in been going? Don’t point to China, they haven’t yet learned that a capitalist Trojan Horse has been let in. And as far as other “capitalist democracies” (I’m guessing you probably refer to Europe- where else does it exist) these have begun to accelerate their decline by becoming increasingly socialist.
“CDIAC is the official contribution from the US nuclear establishment to the AGW scare.”
Mr. Archibald – Please, I hate getting into a “bodily fluid exchange match”.
ORNL..
Oak Ridge National Labs.
Aside from the fact that the ONLY source we had of Enriched Uranium (although I believe some purchases HAVE been made from the French Enrichment plants now.. ) would be from Oak Ridge, by mandate, ORNL HARDLY represents a mythical “Nuclear Industry”.
THEY NEVER SPOKE FOR ME or any of the 7 nuclear plants where I worked.
THEY NEVER SPOKE FOR MY THE UTILITIES I WORKED FOR.
Please, let’s get real on this. You can’t even make a claim of “vested interest” with regard to producing nuclear plants, equipment, or services.
Yes, there are several “commercial spin offs” around Oak Ridge, which originated from Oak Ridge. But aside from the “Nuclear Fuels” connection, Oak Ridge has NO involvement or MANDATE in “promoting nuclear power”. Nor do they produce services or equipment related to nuclear power. Fuel yes, equipment (such as Westinghouse, GE, B&W, Combustion Engineering, NO!)
Darn it! This is just as TROUBLING as having people claim that because I “don’t believe” in AWG, I’m financed by BIG OIL.
Can you see my indignation on this. Yes Nuclear power is the way to go. However there IS NO NUCLEAR ESTABLISHMENT OUT THERE in the USA.
I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret. By the time I left employment in nuclear power, probably 90% of all “nuclear utility” executives absolutely despised their nuclear plants, and would LOVE to do anything to “get rid of them”. (This was about 10 years ago.) In point of fact BECAUSE of the lack of “coordination”, the poor moral of the people working in nuclear power, the lack of mandate, and the generally poor level of technical education in the USA…there is no support coming out of the nuclear utilities or functioning plants, matching the lack of public support.
I have a French contact that assures me a “first form”, or Jr. High student in France can go to a blackboard and draw a set of block diagrams, and outline the form and function of not only a French Pressurized Water Reactor nuclear plant (Westinghouse II and III generation plants), but the whole of the nuclear fuel cycle. This is because there IS a French “nuclear industry”. It’s called Electricity De’France, and it IS effective.
INDEED if you said that the French “Nuclear Industry” promotes itself on the basis of being CO2 free, I’d say this:
http://press.edf.com/press-releases/all-press-releases/2008/edf-ready-to-build-a-new-epr-nuclear-reactor-in-france-43007.html
It should be clear this would validate that claim.
AGAIN, Oak Ridge represents NO “Nuclear Industry” as there IS no “centralized authority” behind nuclear power in the USA. But Oakridge National Labs DO obtain a considerable amount of funds for “Environmental” research and for “Fusion” research. Keeping that money flowing is a lifeblood for their existence. So I can, and will accuse them of being “self serving” with regard to AWG. But let’s remember the Fusion research was started under Eisenhower, to justify the work on the “Hydrogen Bomb” to Congress, who were told that there would be a parallel effort to create a “peacetime” use for Fusion energy.
Max
In France, there is. The contrast is stark.
And you might find it interesting that I’m a “neanderthal conservative”. But I personally lose standing with my fellow “neanderthals” when I tell them: THE ONLY WAY THAT A NUCLEAR POWER OPTION CAN BE OBTAINED IS BY FEDERAL CONTROL AND MANDATE!
Info:
State regulators have always made the decisions about what direction our energy policy takes. The “free market” did not build the nuclear plant I work at or virtually any other power plant in this country. That is why my electricity costs 7 cents per kWH and Anthony’s costs 15+ cents per kWH…………….stupid regulators.
Energy independence is a nonsense goal.
Suppose I waive my wand and magically rearrange world oil production so that the US produces as much oil as it consumes. Guess what, if oil demand from china and india goes through the roof, the price of oil goes up just the same. Don’t forget that the oil produced domestically is still produced by for profit entities, so unless you plan on natIonalizing the oil industry, oil energy independence buys you very little.
Now i agree an oil supply cartel is bad,but that is different…
James (in ca)
Here ya go LazyTeenager. I done yer work for ya. Last I looked, we do have some disagreements with a few of these countries. Two or three in particular.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East
Moderator:
In my response to Mr. Archibald, I put my name in (accidentally) two paragraphs before I concluded.
If I were INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST I would be a strong AWG promoter and at the same time push for more nuclear power. I cannot do that. (As I feel, because of my strong technical background, that the feedback is negative, and the “optical transparency” has been corrupted when compared to classic values derived over the years, and the CO2 influence is commensurately exaggerated..)
In that line of thought I must point out that I have (just) checked on the publications of the “Nuclear Energy Institute”. They are a ‘promotional group’ and nominally represent all the nuclear utilities in the country.
This group can lay claim to representing the nuclear power industry.
I think I owe Mr. Archibald a bet! I must admit. As noted I’ve been out of nuclear power for over 10 years. As such, I’ve not made the slightest attempt to “stay abreast” of things involved with nuclear power. (Can we say the lack of support from the “top”, the bad moral in the industry, and the lack of FUTURE in the industry would lead me to this state?)
Therefore I was APPALLED to find that the NEI has completely “bought off” on AWG to promote Nuclear Power. This is a sad state of affairs. Incredibly sad! It harks of all the vested self interest propaganda crusades of history. Can I make it clear, I will have none of it? This will validate that statement- http://www.nei.org/publicpolicy/nuclearenergyandclimatechange/
Apologies Mr. Archibald. You are correct. Just the wrong attribution in your response. You are free to point to the above (sad but true) source to justify your claim.
Yours,
Max
>>Ian
>>The infrastructure is not in place to deliver sufficient electricity if
>>everyone moved to using electric cars
In the UK, we use about three times as much energy on transport, as we do on electrical production. That is how much extra electrical generating capacity you would need, if everyone had electric vehicles.
.
Thanks David Archibald for this topic thread. I learned a great deal here. I watched the (LFTR video linked to by gallopingcamel, and, like all promotional talks, it looks very good. Assuming all is true and correct, Thorium reactors look very attractive, particularly due to their relatively small size (truck trailer potentially) and relative safety for nuclear energy.
Even if the technology is ready, which it may well be, the problem, of course, will be getting the right combination of funding and government approval necessary to make real progress towards commercial viability. The affected industries, both fossil fuels and conventional nuclear power, would have to look far into the future to invest in LFTR, convincing themselves that the long-term (and far from guaranteed) profits they may gain from LFTR would be worth having them discard their near-term profits building nuke power using their existing and very mature designs. Fossil power interests would have similar worries about their mature designs and customer base going away, being displaced by LFTR if it becomes successful. As for the government, well, paraphrasing the the speaker in the video, you can make up your own mind as to the way the Energy Department has managed nuclear and other power projects.
On the other hand, some politically-connected entrepreneurs may be able to get some private money together and then go for government funding, perhaps based on a need by the Navy for smaller nuclear-powered ships, to pay for the necessary development. Perhaps Army forward operating bases could use this type of portable power.
I know, from experience on advanced system engineering concepts I helped conceptualize and prototype, how far it is from technical feasibility to actual acceptance and funding from the Customer Set (the acquisition -money- people and the potential user community). And, the projects I worked on did not involve radioactive materials!
Nevertheless, I wish them luck and good fortune.
Yes, the technology to resolve the nuclear waste issues has existed for years, the only hurdle is social and political will to accept practical solutions instead of waiting for some magic pie in the sky perfect solution that will encapsulate the high level waste for 1000’s of years.
One of the big issues with high level nuclear waste is heat of decay. If buried for a long time it self heats to high temperatures. Even the transport casks need to be water cooled to prevent over heating. When working for the Colorado Office of Emergency Management I watched a delivery of high level radiation sources to an industrial site. As they got ready to off load the sources, they tapped off the hot water from the cooling system used to manage the cask temperatures, it was steaming hot water.
If someone would use more than 3 brain cells, they would realize that this is not a problem, it is an opportunity. Harvest this “waste heat” with sterling cycle generators, and make electricity off the waste heat for the next few thousand years. High temperature water has problems of its own so cool the high level waste with helium, or just like they do the cores of the HTGR’s and pipe the hot gas to a heat exchanger separate from the high level waste cooling loop.
You solve two problems at one time, you gain a useful heat source that has a practically unlimited life time (in human terms) and like the snap reactors used in space probes you get a high reliability heat source.
By drawing off this waste heat of decay (instead of expending energy to chill a water pool) you also avoid the primary limitation to long term storage.
The problem is social not physical. Between reprocessing of the waste fuels to separate unused fissile material and useful isotopes, and finding constructive uses for both the waste heat and the high radiation levels (ie sterilization) we could turn that high level waste into a resource not a liability.
Larry
Ira, dont you find it sad that you have to invoke the military to promote simple economic advancement.
Dinosaurs do what dinosaurs do, they go extinct. Its time for change and that comes about by doing it. Funding follows success not failure.
observa says:
January 2, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Mustafa, the problem with full plug-in battery vehicles is battery life, which is why market leaders, Toyota have largely stuck with the hybrid car. Essentially-
“The Prius battery (and the battery-power management system) has been designed to maximize battery life. In part this is done by keeping the battery at an optimum charge level – never fully draining it and never fully recharging it. As a result, the Prius battery leads a pretty easy life. We have lab data showing the equivalent of 180,000 miles with no deterioration and expect it to last the life of the vehicle.”
__________________________________________________________
Then there is trouble in hybrid land:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/08/hondas-civic-hybrid-fix-doesnt-fix-the-customer-problem/
My wife had a 2001 VW Beetle diesel 5 speed manual, while living in Minnesota, that got 50 mpg on #2 diesel in the summer time and worst case 42 mpg in the winter on winter blend diesel. So, about an average of 48 mpg considering that there are only about 4 months that required the winter blend. Laws have changed requiring 2% bio-diesel for vehicles in Minnesota. I don’t know what the mpg would be now. We don’t have the Beetle anymore and we live in Florida.
Anyway, Honda’s civic had a 45 mpg rating, but, with the over reliance on the battery, after only about 2 years, the battery life is drawing down and the fix is to change not the battery under warranty but to change the ratio of battery to engine use resulting in about 33 mpg……………..that has to really suck.
So, buy and electric or hybrid, and then budget for a regular vehicle for all the really necessary things.
Then there is this:
http://artobuono.com/north-dakota-mineral-resource-and-bakken-oil-formation-history
The Bakken or Williston Basin. The second link says that North Dakota’s own study estimate as much as 400 billion barrels of oil possible. The basin is larger than ND and in total could produce more.
Oil sands, Shale, near off-shore drilling……we have time to make sane adjustments to our modes of transportation…..politicians hate the thought of having time for progress.
Then there is this:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/features/fcvt_feature_retooling_engines.html
This is a more sane approach to transition towards the future. Hydrogen internal combustion engines. Ford has already demonstrated, along with BMW I think, a hydrogen tank that even when puntured and burning won’t explode. It fills about as fast as a regular gasoline tank and hydrogen has more energy than gasoline/LPG/CNG. If car owners can either modify or change out an engine, or by new, and not be limited in range anymore than gasoline and be cleaner than electric, I think there is a future here.
Meanwhile, Gov Arnold flogs globaloney – with a 22% approval rating:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/us-politics/8236072/Arnold-Schwarzenegger-leaves-public-office-but-will-he-be-back.html
[Check out the comments. You can vote on them or add your own.]
How to make money from my apocalyptic visions.
A couple of people have emailed me to ask how to make money from thorium etc. So following are some ideas from off the top of my head. There is too much thorium around to make money out of mining it.
1. Buy coal reserves. As the oil price rises, the NPV of a barrel of oil in the ground and the NPV of a tonne of coal in the ground converge. AT$200/bbl, coal in the ground is worth $66 per tonne as feedstock for a CTL plant. At the moment you can buy some coal reserves for cents per tonne. This is a very cheap option to future-proof yourself. It is a very scaleable from buying a few thousand dollars of a coal stock to whole coalfields. Coal is the thing most hated by the Sierra Club, the EPA etc. and that is a good indicator that it is a very good thing to do.
2. Some stupid states, e.g. Colorado, are closing coal fired plants so they can build gas-fired plants. Buy those coal fired plants on closure for their scrap price, with the coal reserves, and then sell them back to the former owners in five years time. Right at the moment Deutsche Bank is leading a push to promote AGW, so my guess is that they will start a fund to buy closed coal fired power plants and do exactly this.
3. Buy depleted oil fields that would respond to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) using CO2. There is at least one US-listed oil company already doing this and they are constrained by a lack of CO2. As CTL plants are built, there will plenty of CO2 becoming available. Right at the moment, these sorts of depleted oil fields can be bought for cents per barrel. Or as a CTL plant builder, you could marry the two for enhanced profitability.
4. Become the Boeing of the thorium-fueled molten salt breeder reactor industry. Apart from the research to commercialise the reactor, you would need a big long shed adjacent to navigable water. The reactors will not be physically large and neither the individual components. So the individual parts can be made by subcontractors and you will assemble the reactors on a production line, put them on a barge and out they go.
5. CTL plants require a big cryogenic oxygen plant. There is potentially a constraint in the supply of those.
6. The basic chemical industry left the US when it was undercut by cheap supply by SABIC etc from the Middle East. Now that the price of internationally traded natural gas has risen to the oil price, and natural gas is directly substitutable as a transport fuel, natural gas is no longer a cheap chemical feedstock. So the UAE is installing South Korean nuclear reactors so they can stop burning natural gas for power generation. This all means that the chemical industry for basic things like urea will return to the US. So buy distressed urea plants etc. now and then put a coal-fired synthesis gas plant on the front end to provide the feedstock.
7. This idea is for Basin Electric Power Corporation, which owns the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in North Dakota. That plant was set up to convert lignite to synthetic natural gas instead of diesel etc. because, at the time, it was thought that the US had a shortage of natural gas. In fact the perceived shortage was only due to Federal legislation on pricing of interstate sales of natural gas. Now there is a big price differential between natural gas and the liquid fuels that the plant could be producing. So, pipe the synthesis gas off to new reactors that will make liquids, and then also sell access to the plant for training for the rest of the US CTL industry.
@JDN:
“Has anyone written on what price-point coal & Saudi crude have to be in order to make coal conversion cost effective?”
About 30 years ago, the price point was $60-$80/bbl. Somehow, when it looked like coal gasification/liquification might turn a technological corner, the price of oil dropped so low that no one would fund a serious program to keep going, “just for insurance”. The real issue is the loss of all the human capital invested in these projects. It’s all the tricks, subtleties, and rules-of-thumb that go away when projects are disbanded. All the expensive lessons have to be relearned, all the mistakes remade. Trust me, no matter how many reports are written, the day-to-day knowledge of how to make these processes work is never captured. Unless you’ve got all the maintenance tickets squirreled away somewhere. They’d be worth 1000x their weight in perfect 1 carat diamonds.