Ah the future....to see how tenuous in may be for some, look what the BP/Amoco's acquisition of ARCO has set in motion. One of the many casualties of this union, for example, may be a company like Syntroleum (SYNM) who sought to use their proprietary Fischer Tropsch technology to develop and distribute clean synthetic diesel fuels. This from a recent PR release:
"Syntroleum added that it has begun tests of its synthetic fuels made from natural gas with a national laboratory to demonstrate the effectiveness of reforming the synthetic fuel into hydrogen for powering fuel cells. Synthetic fuels converted from natural gas appear to have none of the drawbacks associated with the other proposed energy sources, which have problems with toxicity, relatively low hydrogen density and lack of distribution infrastructure. Other sources often contain sulfur and other contaminants that pose technical challenges to fuel cell design.
Syntroleum fuels are virtually free of sulfur, aromatics and heavy metals. Early work suggests that they provide fuel cells almost twice the hydrogen per unit volume of fuel than does methanol-thus providing more vehicle range per fill-up. Synthetic fuels also can be transported and sold through existing fuel distribution infrastructure, giving them substantial advantages over other alternative fuels, in terms of cost and convenience.
Mark Agee, Syntroleum's president and chief operating officer, said, ''We believe synthetic fuels are going to be a major factor in overcoming the barriers to making fuel cell vehicles commercially viable.'' Syntroleum Corporation licenses its proprietary process for converting natural gas into synthetic crude oil and transportation fuels. The process is designed to be applied in plant sizes ranging from 2,000 barrels per day up to more than 100,000 barrels per day. Current licensees include ARCO, Enron, Kerr-McGee, Marathon, Texaco and YPF."
(http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990324/tx_syntrol_1.html)
Gee, interesting stuff. DaimlerChrysler must have also thought so....or at least until the winds changed and SYNM's agreements with ARCO and TX (along with others) apparently came to a screeching halt. Now who's going to build the refineries needed to test and produce these "designer fuels" for SYNM? Who's DaimlerChrysler going to now turn to? Read SYNM's recent 10-K if you want more details, but as I said, interesting stuff....
Who's going to be the major players in this field in the future? Who knows, but forces are coming into play which will make the next several months very interesting. Who says so? The DOE and the EPA do. Learn where the money is going and why and then you'll see and understand why the future is NOW!
Bradpalm1 |
