Hitler's capability to conquer Europe was discounted by the experts of the day at least partly because Germany had virtually no oil deposits. It was thought that merely cutting his oil imports would starve any serious war effort. Those experts either didn't know of, or discounted the potential of turning Germany's vast coal reserves into liquid fuel, the synthetic fuel that powered Germany's motorized Army, panzer divisions, and the Luftwaffe.
In the 1920s two German scientists named Frans Fischer and Hans Tropsch developed a process (the Fischer-Tropsch Method) of processing coal to produce a liquid hydrocarbon fuel by reacting the carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane obtained from coal. The product was refined to create a synthetic fuel.
In WWII, it was not unusual for German tanks to drive or be towed to the battlefield powered by flammable gas made from wood. At the battlefield the tanks would be converted to burn synthetic fuel in battle. The tide of war turned against Germany when the synthetic fuel plants were bombed and fuel production stopped. In 1944 General George Patton was speeding across Germany with the objective of being the first Allied force to reach Berlin. His forces outpaced his supply lines and his progress stopped. Patton ordered that synthetic fuel be drained from captured or abandoned German vehicles, and some of Patton's Sherman tanks and personnel carries were converted to run on synthetic fuel.
The more interesting synthetic fuel was that obtained through processes invented by Friederich Bergius (and later enhanced by Matthias Pier). Bergius won a Nobel Prize for his work. The Bureau of Mines spent much time analyzing remnants of Bergius-process plants after the war.
Posted by: Lawrence B. Ebert | October 06, 2005 at 07:08 AM
The antitrust/patent implications of the deal between I.G. Farben and Standard Oil of New Jersey over synfuel and buna rubber are explored at IPBiz:
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2005/11/standard-oil-and-ig-farben-patents-and.html.
Posted by: Lawrence B. Ebert | November 13, 2005 at 11:13 AM
hmmm interesting
Posted by: GAGAGA | May 05, 2006 at 06:12 PM
Interesting anecdote...
More interesting because there have been recent explorations into the fischer-tropsch process to discover how diesel can be extracted more economically using the F-T process...while South Africa for instance has been using the F-T process for a while to extract "green" diesel, the process itself has not been very economical...new discoveries promise that it will soon be economically viable to have diesel produced from coal
Ec, Castor Oil Online @ http://www.castoroil.in
Posted by: Castor Oil | May 16, 2006 at 12:20 PM
While this is interesting. I agree with the other comment regarding the Bergius Process. And the now improved version, the "Kohleol" process, which is really just the Bergius with slightly different technology.
Indirect CTL technicques such as F-T are inefficient, and produce less transportation fuels than direct techniques. There's about 7 different commercially viable direct techniques mainly developed in germany, usa and japan. The first commercial scale direct CTL plant as part of this postmodern-era CTL revival is the NEDOL plant (Kohleol process), which is meant to be producing as of now... (Feb, 2008) but I doubt the Chinese government will let anyone see the results for a while.
Posted by: Craig | February 07, 2008 at 06:53 PM
It’s great that more people are focusing on making better environmental choices. Plus technology is making it more economical now, and that’s what people really notice. Wind energy, solar power, hybrids and zap EV’s, our choices are good. There are now electric cars being sold everyday, you just plug it into a regular power outlet. When people test drive them they say it’s far more fun to drive an EV.
Posted by: Web | March 24, 2008 at 05:38 PM
It’s great that more people are focusing on making better environmental choices. Plus technology is making it more economical now, and that’s what people really notice. Wind energy, solar power, hybrids and zap EV’s, our choices are good. There are now electric cars being sold everyday, you just plug it into a regular power outlet. When people test drive them they say it’s far more fun to drive an EV.
Posted by: Web | March 24, 2008 at 05:53 PM
Indirect CTL technicques such as F-T are inefficient, and produce less transportation fuels than direct techniques. There's about 7 different commercially viable direct techniques mainly developed in germany, usa and japan.
http://crash456.blog.co.uk/2009/09/23/diesel-fuel-a-respite-to-fuel-emission-7024102/
Posted by: Robin Smith | September 23, 2009 at 06:22 AM