Alternate uses for coal Warning: This has nothing to do with Met Coal, CMK, Merritt or Bond46's most recect rant.
Having said that, sometimes you need to take a 30 000 ft., or 10 000 metre, view of things. North America is awash with Nat Gas & Coal. Two of the most inexpensive and abundant sources of fuel on the planet. Supporters, such a T. Boone Pickens, want to use CNG as a transport fuel, although patriotic, this fuel does not provide the torque required to pull transport trucks and will not ultimately displace diesel. I am not saying that technology will not eventually solve this issue, but, currently it is not a viable solution. Retrofitting filling stations, adding double walled tanks to vehicals, not to mention the amount of energy required to compress or liquify the fuel, are all deterants for mass implementation.
What if there was an alternate source of transport fuel that we can cleanly extract from coal and nat gas, that would not require new filling stations to be built and the cost to converting the existing fleet of vehicals is $100 at the manufacturer's level? In fact, the former "Big Three" already have the technology and build these vehicals for the Braziian market.
Methanol is the answer.
Pros:
Higher octane than gasoline
Cleaner for the environment
Has to be blended with 10% ethanol (keeping the subsidized corm farmers happy)
Can be stored and distributed by the current filling station infrastructure
$1.75/Gallon retail price
Cons:
Takes 1.7 gallons of methanol to travel the same distance as 1 gallon of gasoline
Blends so well with gasoline that several filing stations in China have been charged for mixing methanol in their storage tanks and charging gasoline prices.
Currently, there is a bill on the floor of congress awaiting to be heard for the second time, introducing methanol based transport fuel not as a replacement for gasoline but as an alternative, offering price competition in a market that has enjoyed a monopoly for close to 100 years.
So, you may ask yourself, what is the point of this Miner666 guy posting this information on Cline Mining board? Well, you may think that coal mining industry is dead, it's dirty, and coal's value is reflected by it's all time low spot price and the subsequent declining share price of the mining companies that extract it. But, if you were to look out beyond the current situation and see coal's alternate uses, then this may be the best opportunity you have been presented with, as an investor, in your lifetime.
By the way, for my Canadian friends, Methanex (Vancouver based company) is the largest methanol producer in the world.
For your reading pleasure:
https://www.usesc.org/energy_security/index.php/energysecurity
https://www.iags.org/methanolsources.htm