Coal is an option to convert it to synfuel in the medium term (not short term). CSIRO point sout to the Senate Inquiry that "
The situation with the production of synfuel from coal (CtL) is a somewhat different. The key issue here is, . compared to natural gas, the process produces more greenhouse gas emissions., However, the reserves of coal are much larger than the reserves of gas, particularly in America. It seems highly probable that CtL processes will be optimised in America. In this case, the research needs must be focused on adjusting processes to meet the use of Australian coals. CSIRO is already active in this field, working with coal gasification and clean up of syngas prepared from Australian coals. Once syngas is produced and cleaned, the conversion to synfuel will follow the same line as GtL. As a result, additional in-depth research is unlikely to be required".
Geoscience Australia state that "As with the conventional fuels referred to above, each alternative transport fuel has advantages and disadvantages. Important considerations include adequacy of resources and sustainability of production, full life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, other emissions, OH&S effects, cost and weight of storage, modifications to existing infrastructure and engines. Some of these processes themselves consume considerable amounts of energy to convert or store energy into a usable form, so the net energy gain from conversion to a convenient and practical form of transport fuel may be small. Australia has very significant black and brown coal resources (Geoscience Australia 2005). The resource life of accessible economic demonstrated resources (EDR) of black coal (40.3 Gt) is greater than 100 years at current rates of production. The resource life of accessible EDR of brown coal of 30.0 Gt is close to 450 years. Australia has 5% of the world’s recoverable black coal EDR and ranks sixth behind USA (20%), China (13%), India (12%) and South Africa (7%). It produced about 7% of the world’s black coal in 2004 and ranked fourth after China (37%), USA (22%) and India (8%). Australia has about 24% of the world’s brown coal EDR and is ranked number one in this category. Australia produces about 8% of the world’s brown coal and is the fifth largest producer after Germany (22%), Russia (10%), USA (9%) and Greece (8%).
There is potential to convert black or brown coal to diesel fuel using a number of different processes. Conversion of Latrobe Valley brown coal to diesel has been proposed using the Fischer-Tropsch gas-to-liquids technology. Between 1985 and 1990 the Brown Coal Liquefaction (Victoria) Pty Ltd pilot plant trial (50 tonne/day) of the liquefaction of Victorian brown coals was carried out by a consortium of Japanese companies. A two-stage hydrogenation process was used". However can we scale this up to provide for a large amount of our transport industry fuel - there is not a chance we could even provide for our current liquid fuel daily demand in Australia using coal to synfuel technology!!
When looking at alterntive fuels it is crucial to consider the energy invested vs the energy returned.......
The real issue then becomes how much coal can be converted to liquid fuel every day (we need 800,000 barrels a day minimum and this needs to increase to over 1 200 000 barrels per day out to 2029-30.
This forecast represents a sustained increase of almost 2% annually until 2029-30. On a simplistic analysis out to 2009, the Australian production estimates for crude oil and condensate represent only 63% of the forecast Australian demand for oil. As projections of production rates suggest they will decline after 2009, the shortfall in domestic demand versus domestic supply is anticipated to increase significantly.
Happy research!