on today's AP wire, a story that sounds great but I'll bet its a long way off. Have I been missing something or has this been under wraps?

(05-15-05) 09:30 PDT RAS LAFFAN INDUSTRIAL CITY, Qatar (AP) --
"Petroleum experts who have sniffed vials of gin-clear GTL diesel speak of it with reverence.
"It's a beautiful product," says Jim Jensen, a Massachusetts-based energy economist. "The kerosene smells like perfume."
"Those chipping in include oil titans Royal Dutch/Shell Group, ChevronTexaco Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., which is making a $7 billion bet on GTL, the largest investment in the corporate history of America's largest company.
The investments amount to a big gamble on a clean alternative to pollutant-rich crude oil, based on an obscure "synthetic fuel" process developed to make fuel from coal in 1920s Germany."

see: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/05/15/international/i093028D98.DTL

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'95 E320 Wagon my favorite road car. '99 E300D wolf in sheeps body, '87 300D Sportline suspension, '79 300TD w/ 617.952 engine at 367,750 and counting!

I just posted the same thing from Yahoo....... I literatly just got done posting it, and saw that you did the same...... I think its kind of funny....

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1983 Mercedes 300D
Atlanta, GA

wow, great minds working on the same thing at the same moment in time!
I doubt we will see this stuff at the pumps what with all the beaureacratic roadblocks in place

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'95 E320 Wagon my favorite road car. '99 E300D wolf in sheeps body, '87 300D Sportline suspension, '79 300TD w/ 617.952 engine at 367,750 and counting!

WTF is "green" about it? It's still made out of fossil fuels. But then some people think hydrogen is "green" too.

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'83 240D with 617.952 and 2.88
'01 VW Beetle TDI
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD
'89 Toyota 4x4, needs 2L-T
'78 280Z with L28ET - 12.86@110
Oil Burner Kartel #35

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...oD/bioclip.jpg

I agree that we may never see this stuff at the pumps any time soon. If we do get it at the pumps, I can imagine it would be alot more expensive than the diesel that we use now.

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1983 Mercedes 300D
Atlanta, GA

This stuff makes sense - Many of oil supplying countries are in warm climates and have no need for natural gas for heating. Most just cap it or vent it. So, the raw material has minimal local value.

What can they do with it - Some are turning it into LNG (liquefied natural gas) and shipping it by tanker to China, USa etc. Problems with locating unloading facilities - A tanker full of LNG is a big bomb! Nvertheless, this is going ahead to some degree due to the shortages of Natural gas.

Why not turn the NG into a useable automotive fuel? This can be used locally or exported. SASOL, a South African company developed a process for conversion of natural gas to liquid fuels. It is based on coal - liquid fuel technology that the have developed based on a process originally developed by the Germans in WW2.

This will not be cheap fuel, but with oil at around $5-/bbl it will likley be economical to build the plants. Some are already being built.

Some more info on the process and by products:

http://www.deadduck.co.za/region/western_cape/garden_route/petrosa.htm