The Canadian synthetic fuel industry—a major user of hydrogen

Abstract

Oil sands and coal will be the dominant future sources of synthetic fuels in Canada. Proved recoverable reserves of oil sands are equivalent to 54 y of supply at current petroleum production rates; established recoverable coal reserves could meet both Canada's petroleum and coal requirements (at current production rates) for 58 y. It is expected that advances in technology will extend these figures by many hundreds of years. Current production from oil sands is equivalent to roughly 10% of Canada's petroleum energy demand. The hydrogen requirement for the existing oil sand plants is 160 million scf per day, and this figure is expected to increase to at least 1000 million scf per day before the year 2005. Natural gas is the current source of hydrogen but coke gasification and electrolysis of water are potential future sources of supply. A combination of coke gasification and electrolysis, with the oxygen generated from the latter being used for the gasification reaction, shows promise. No commercial coal conversion plants exist in Canada, but extensive laboratory and bench unit testing of both pyrolysis and liquefaction processes are underway. Two-staged liquefaction processing has been shown to give higher liquid yields with lower hydrogen consumption and warrants further research and development. Due to the lower hydrogen content of coal, the hydrogen requirements for coal liquefaction plants will be more than double that of oil sand plants of equivalent output.