Sasol has been in the synthetic fuels business for over half a century, deriving its initial experience in South Africa when the country was isolated during the apartheid years, and it produced liquid fuels from coal turned to syngas.
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Our enemies would be denied the geo-strategic leverage they currently enjoy, as indigenously produced energy sources derived from coal, biomass and garbage knock the pegs out from under the cartel's control of the commodity upon which our transportation sector heavily depends.
The produced coal EBITDA margin increased from around 13% in 2006 to 22% in 2008, with increasing global demand for coal resulting in higher profit margins for coal producers like Massey.
Well, a lot of it is being produced from enormous U.S. coal shale reserves through the process of fracking.
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The produced coal EBITDA margin increased from around 13% in 2006 to just over 22% in 2008, as increasing global demand for coal resulted in higher profit margins for coal producers like Massey.
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Such fuels include natural gas, methanol (which can be produced from anything with carbon in it, including natural gas and coal) and ethanol (which can be generated from sources other than corn, particularly as cellulosic technologies come on stream).
The same amount of energy from a combustion power plant is produced daily by combining 20 million pounds of coal with 200 million pounds of air, not incidentally yielding an equal weight in ashes and gases.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Consol produced 0.9 million metric tons of this coal, according to its earnings report, largely from its Bailey Mine in West Finley, Pa.
Dr Alamaro wants to use a gas-burning, rather than a coal- or oil-burning plant, because the exhaust produced by burning natural gas is free from sulphur dioxide, which plants hate.
But the shift towards synthetic fuel has provoked criticism, because when such fuel is made from coal and then burned in an aircraft engine, more greenhouse gases are emitted overall than would be produced if the aircraft simply burned conventional fuel derived from oil.
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