Liquifying Coal

In class on Friday, one group presented an article on the process of liquifying coal. I had read a bit about this process in my groups' own article about clean coal and China, but the article did not go very in depth. 

From what i understood from the presentation, liquifying coal is a process that is only in its beginning stages. One of the setbacks of liquified coal is that is a fairly new technology and has not been thoroughly investigated. However, we must look to the future and hope that more can be found out about this process. 

Notes:

-Half of U.S. electricity comes from coal. 

-Liquifying coal would emit less carbon dioxide and mercury.

-BUT, some carbon dioxide would still be emitted.

-Fischer-Tropsch Process-gasified coal converted into  diesel operates best at 150-300 degrees Celsius, but the temperature is kept lower than that to save money and emit less methane, even though using higher temperatures in this process would be more efficient. 

-Tests have only been conducted on a small scale process and would need to be done on a much larger scale in order to really evaluate results and eventually implement the process of liquifying coal.