Word: hydrocarbons
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...transport. That will change if the cost of converting coal directly into liquid fuels can compete with that of refining crude oil. Nanotechnology may be the long-awaited breakthrough. "It has improved the economics of the process by $5 to $10 a barrel," says Theo Lee, CEO of Hydrocarbon Technologies Incorporated, a subsidiary of Headwaters, a Draper, Utah-based alternative-energy company. "Direct coal liquefaction is now economically attractive in China at today's international crude-oil price [of about $28]; a $4 to $8 a barrel increase in the price would make it economically attractive...
...modulating 2 to 20-watt microturbine fueled by liquid hydrocarbon and weighing less than 1 lb. (.5 kg) will power a soldier for six days...
...years ago, Dineh Mohajer, 24, was a premed student memorizing hydrocarbon chains and looking forward to a lazy summer of shopping and hanging with friends. Today she runs Hard Candy, a company she started on a whim after mixing pale blue nail polish in her bathroom to match a pair of sandals. Last year's sales: $10 million. This year's projection: $25 million. "Someone asked, 'Why do you make nail polish for young girls with colors called Pimp and Porno?'" she recalls. "I thought, 'O.K. You're taking yourself wa-a-ay too seriously.' Like, pimp is slang...
Nowhere in this hydrocarbon hysteria did the notion arise that maybe gas prices are exactly where they ought to be. The price of any commodity is a means of balancing supply and demand, and right now the balance is going in favor of higher prices. In gasoline's case, demand has clearly been on the upswing. It used to be that Americans were happy with a full tank and an open road. Now they don't even need the road, given the growing passion for heavy sport-utility vehicles. "If there hadn't been this shift to larger vehicles," says...
...refining, coal liquefaction and other related industrial processes depend on chemists' being able to manipulate the complex molecules known as hydrocarbons. George Olah of the University of Southern California discovered in the 1960s how to slow down -- and thus control -- hydrocarbon reactions by supercooling them. His work led directly to the development of higher-octane gasoline -- and earned him this year's Chemistry Prize...