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If for some reason, coal to oil (synfuel or syncrude) were to be ramped up, it could be quite astounding. There are only trial runs at this point, however.

Germany during the WWII era was able to produce 75% of their oil needs due to synfuels. Once the plants were bombed or disrupted, Germany ran out of fuel and lost the war.




Not only trial runs. See this http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/south-afri... . This is a faciltiy that works, operated by Sasol. They plan to build a 80k barrel/day facility in China.

PS. noteworthy in the article is the mentioning of Obama, who was pushing for such a coal-to-oil technology to be brought to US.




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