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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Adams who wrote (27379)	11/24/2003 2:10:34 AM
From: Mark Adams	Respond to of 206328

Today, methanol is typically marketed at lower costs per energy content than Fischer-Tropsch fuels. However, in the long term, any reduced costs per energy content enjoyed by methanol over Fischer-Tropsch are likely to diminish. Only Fischer-Tropsch fuels provide full compatibility with existing gasoline and diesel distribution systems—an important competitive edge. Fischer-Tropsch fuels also have higher energy densities and compatibility with more-efficient diesel engines. Diesel engines will remain the workhorse for commercial transit and industrial applications for many years to come. Only Fischer-Tropsch fuels offer the long-term potential for compatibility with automobile fuel cells and compression-ignition engines for trucks, tractors, and locomotives. Any large-scale alternative fuel strategy needs to have a synergy with high fuel economy vehicles and ultra low emission standards. Here, fuel cell manufacturers are leaning toward methanol; however, this is primarily because the fuel cell technology is more advanced for methanol and not because methanol has long-term performance potential over Fischer-Tropsch fuels. For use with highly-efficient diesel engines, Fischer-Tropsch fuels have the competitive advantage. For ultra-low emissions, both are low sulfur fuels and are compatible with the emission controls that are needed to meet ultra-low emissions. Good indicators that Fischer-Tropsch fuels are the wave of the future are the vast numbers of related patents being pursued by the major oil companies—the patent activities in these areas by major oil companies dwarf their activities in all other alternative fuel technologies. Several reputable groups have put forward cost estimates of $0.40 to $0.85 per gallon for crude prices of Fischer-Tropsch fuels. It has been demonstrated that this crude Fischer-Tropsch fuel performs better in a diesel engine than conventional diesel, and these prices are competitive with petroleum products today. The primary reason why Fischer-Tropsch fuels have not taken off is not because they are not cost-competitive. Rather, in the near future the oil-producing countries could undercut the prices of Fischer-Tropsch fuels (in attempts to prevent market penetration), creating great risk to the hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital needed to build world-scale refining/production facilities. missouri.edu