The economical production of alcohol fuels from coal-derived synthesis gas. Quarterly technical progress report No. 5, October 1, 1992--December 31, 1992
Two base case flow sheets have now been prepared. In the first, which was originally presented in TPR4, a Texaco gasifier is used. Natural gas is also burned in sufficient quantity to increase the hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratio of the synthesis gas to the required value of 1. 1 for alcohol synthesis. Acid gas clean up and sulfur removal are accomplished using the Rectisol process followed by the Claus and Beavon processes. About 10% of the synthesis gas is sent to a power generation unit in order to produce electric power, with the remaining 90% used for alcohol synthesis. For this process, the estimated installed cost is $474.2 mm. The estimated annual operating costs are $64.5 MM. At a price of alcohol fuels in the vicinity of $1. 00/gal, the pay back period for construction of this plant is about four years. The details of this case, called Base Case 1, are presented in Appendix 1. The second base case, called Base Case 2, also has a detailed description and explanation in Appendix 1. In Base Case 2, a Lurgi Gasifier is used. The motivation for using a Lurgi Gasifier is that it runs at a lower temperature and pressure and, therefore, produces by-products such as coal liquids which can be sold. Based upon the economics of joint production, discussed in Technical Progress Report 4, this is a necessity. Since synthesis gas from natural gas is always less expensive to produce than from coal, then alcohol fuels will always be less expensive to produce from natural gas than from coal. Therefore, the only way to make coal- derived alcohol fuels economically competitive is to decrease the cost of production of coal-derived synthesis gas. one method for accomplishing this is to sell the by-products from the gasification step. The details of this strategy are discussed in Appendix 3.
- Research Organization:
- West Virginia Univ. Research Corp., Morgantown, WV (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC22-91PC91034
- OSTI ID:
- 10192759
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/PC/91034-T4; ON: DE94002399; BR: AA2520000
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Jan 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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