Saul Sterman

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Regarding Huntsman (HUN), see article beneath 2008 chart here:
www.crossprofit.com/vi...

As stated in article, no position was taken in this arbitrage. As the title suggests, there were just too many question marks popping up. Upon this last earnings miss, Apollo called a MAC yesterday effectively nullifying the acquisition agreement. There may NOT be a break-up fee though HUN has gone to court!

HUN should have negotiated a new price tag though the whole scenario is very problematic as certain shareholders already cashed out. This deal looks dead; funeral dance (courts) to follow.

Saul Sterman

Recession? I've Got a Solution

I would like to thank all of the above commentators for your thoughts and insights.

There is just one item that I would like to expound upon as this was not sufficiently clear in my article (pun intended as explained below).

You must have all noticed that I am not referring to the Air Force project as CTL, instead opting for a new homemade acronym "CLEAR".

Though the Air Force is coy on the specific details, we do get enough information that implies that we are dealing with a more advance technology than conventional CTL.

"The Air Force is adamant it can advance the technology used in those plants to turn dirty coal into a "green fuel," by capturing the carbon dioxide and other, more toxic emissions produced during manufacturing.

However, that would not address emissions from burning the fuel, said Robert Williams, a senior research scientist at Princeton University. To do more than simply break even, the industry must reduce the amount of coal used in the synthetic-fuel blend and supplement it with a fuel derived from plants, Williams said.

Air force officials said they were investigating that possibility."

As I stated in the article, I am not an expert in this field. However, I am familiar (to a degree) with the Fischer Tropsch technique. Likewsie, I have some (limited) understanding of Bergius and Schroeder processes; thus concluding that they are not in play. It sounds to me more in line with low temperature carbonization where the output is really a bio fuel cocktail relying on hay or something from the grass family (not plants as mentioned in the article).

If I am not mistaken, China has already built such a unit and has been producing liquids since late 2007. I believe that the basic technology is based on the Karrick process (just because it makes sense to me), though I do not have any documented information on the subject.

The advantage of the Karrick process as per Wikipedia:
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Karrick processing of 1 short ton of coal yields up to 1 barrel of coal tars (12% by weight), richer in lighter hydrocarbons than normal coal tar and suitable for processing into fuels, 3000 cubic feet of rich fuel gas and 1500 pounds of solid smokeless char or semi-coke (for one metric ton, 0.175 m³ of coal tars, 95 m³ of gas, and 750 kg of semi-coke).

Smokeless char can be used for utility boilers and cooking coal in steel smelters, yields more heat than raw coal and can be converted to water gas. Water gas can be converted to oil by the Fischer-Tropsch process.

Coal gas from Karrick LTC yields greater energy content than natural gas.

Phenolic wastes are used by the chemical industry as feedstock for plastics, etc. Electrical power can be cogenerated at nominal cost. Karrick LTC process generates carbon dioxide.
======================...

If my understanding is correct, the Air Force is claiming that it has licked th Co2 problem, gets the advantages mentioned above (see the intended usage breakdown in the AP article) and is figuring out a way to blend the diesel product with other bio fuels for better burning emissions as well.

I trust this CLEARs things up a bit!

Thanks,
Saul

Recession? I've Got a Solution

vboring,

Thanks for the afflicting correction!

DougM,

"more problems than it solves"
Is this an assumption or do you have access to data from the proposed projects?

Saul