The impetus for this book is twofold. First, in response to the well documented oil shocks of the 1970s there arose a resurgence of research activity in the synthetic fuels area. This book attempts to capture some of the leading edge advances which have been made over the past decade in the area of the chemistry of coal conversion. The second driving force behind this book is to jog people's memories about the fundamental truths of the energy industry, i. e., there IS a finite amount of liquid hydrocarbons on and under the earth's surface, most of the easy to find, produce, and use liquid...

The impetus for this book is twofold. First, in response to the well- documented oil shocks of the 1970s there arose a resurgence of research activity in the synthetic fuels area. This book attempts to capture some of the leading edge advances which have been made over the past decade in the area of the chemistry of coal conversion. The second driving force behind this book is to jog people's memories about the fundamental truths of the energy industry, i. e., there IS a finite amount of liquid hydrocarbons on and under the earth's surface, most of the easy to find, produce, and use liquid...