3311.     SYMONDS, F. L., LAUGHREY, P. W., SKINNER, L. C., BATCHELDER, H. R., AND DONATH, E. E.  Synthetic Fuel Processes May Be Future Source of Utility Gas.  Am. Gas Jour., vol. 171, NO. 1, 1949, pp. 19-21; Am. Gas Assoc. Monthly, vol. 31, No. 7-8, 1949, pp. 18-20, 24.

        Paper presented at the American Gas Association meeting, May 1949.  The residual gas from both the coal-hydrogenation process and the Fischer-Tropsch is suitable for general use as a city gas.  In the former case, the city gas produced in the normal operation of a 10,000-bbl.-per-day plant will amount to about 390,000 cu. ft. per hr. with a net heating value of 1,065 B.t.u. per cu. ft.  To make this gas available for city gas consumption, the hydrocarbon steam-reforming section would be eliminated, and the size of the coal gasification section would be increased to such a point that it could produce an equivalent amount of H₂.  With coal at $3.56 per ton, the actual cost of the city gas would be $0.44 per M.B.t.u.  The value of the gas from the Fischer-Tropsch process roughly will equal that recovered from coal hydrogenation.  Assuming that 1,000,000 bbl. per day of synthetic liquid fuels were to be produced and that 75% of this is suitable for city gas, 710,000,000 cu. ft. per day would be available, or about 90% of the total manufactured gas production of the entire United States in 1944.