How Come South Africa Produces SynFuel Gas/Diesel And We (USA) Don't?

Question

In 1944 the US Gov't opened numerous plants which employed variants of the Bergius Hydrogenation Process which was applied to coal, biotic materials including sugar cane trash, rubber tires and anything containing carbon. Many of the plants continued to produce 200 barrels a day using minimal test quantities of coal and other carbon rich materials. When I was in college my professor who was forced to work on n**i synfuels said you could make gasoline from anything containing carbon -- and do it cheaply. So with the infrastructure to move fuels around, why aren't we doing what South Africa is doing right now and has been for generations?

Answer 1

Oil industry protecting its profits.  Remember you have certain countrys with lots and lots of money.  Money buys a lot of regulations.

Answer 2

Because we have domestic oil, and South Africa doesn't.

You can make the gas, but it's expensive,

and wasteful of other resources and energy

compared to pumping & refining petroleum.

That appears to be changing now, but the soundness

of the investment depends on Cartel set prices.

Want to bet they aren't ready to manipulate the price

to forstall the competition? ... How much?

Answer 3

The United States Department of Energy projects that domestic consumption of synthetic fuel made from coal and natural gas will rise to 3.7 million barrels per day in 2030 based on a price of $57 per barrel of high sulfur crude (Annual Energy Outlook 2006, Table 14, pg52).

Current oil price is just over $136, so who knows? Maybe they will again soon.