Interesting video, but I have some technical questions.

If they gasify coal with oxygen, as they claim in the video, where does the hydrogen come from to make the hydrogen gas, etc. Usually, gasifying coal with O2 yields CO2, not carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gasification processes I am familiar with use water mixed with coal to generate carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, but this process apparently puts the water in at a much later step, so I am unclear how this would actually work (assuming that they people putting the video together got the technical stuff correct).

I noticed how clean and green the facility is in the video. I have never seen a coal plant look that clean. Coal dust is inherently dirty, and everything at the plant turns a dingy dirty gray/black within a week of start-up.

I am curious what the "mercury guard bed" is. Does this mean they are planning to use activated charcoal bed to trap mercury? Then what happens to all the mercury-contaminated charcoal?

The claim that sulfur recovery would yield commercially marketable sulfur has been made repeatedly by coal operators. They promise it often, but they never actually deliver. I just don't see it happening.

The CO2 is supposed to be "capture ready", but that does not mean they actually plan to capture it. So the greenhouse gas issues are still relevant. The next video shows their plan for a CO2 pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico for enhanced oil recovery. That would be several billion dollars for a pipeline, and I don't see that happening any time soon either.

The final product is called gasoline, but what they illustrate is heptane, a 7-carbon liquid. Gasoline is mostly octane, an 8-carbon liquid, so I am curious as to whether this is really what they intend, or is it another technical error?

Does anyone on the Energy Committee ant to look over the permit application and see what they actually propose?

Jim Kotcon

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Jim Sconyers jim_scon@yahoo.com 2/17/2009 7:24 PM >>>

This is pretty interesting - except PAINFULLY SLOW!

Jim Sconyers

jim_scon@yahoo.com

304.906.6628

Remember: Mother Nature bats last.

--- On Mon, 2/16/09, Emily.Ulmer@sierraclub.org Emily.Ulmer@sierraclub.org wrote: From: Emily.Ulmer@sierraclub.org Emily.Ulmer@sierraclub.org Subject: Coal to gas video To: bruce.nilles@sierraclub.org, pat.gallagher@sierraclub.org, andrea.issod@sierraclub.org, jim_scon@yahoo.com Date: Monday, February 16, 2009, 5:51 PM

Thought you might be interested in this fancy animation from Transgas's website

http://www.transgasdevelopment.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=vie...

Emily Ulmer

Paralegal

Sierra Club Environmental Law Program

85 Second Street, 2nd Floor

San Francisco, CA 94105

415.977.5693

415.977.5793 fax

emily.ulmer@sierraclub.org

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