Fifty Years in Synthetic Fuels Information: Have We Lost a Strategic National Resource

摘要

The recent 50-year history of the synthetic fuels industry is a long saga of fluctuating national interest, funding, and precipitous world events. The goal of a unified information set has been seriously compromised by war and shortages, prosperity and apathy, economic conflict and OPEC, and a return to abundant supply. On the horizon looms the dismal prospect of a real and permanent energy shortage, a prospect that easily justifies the need for keeping important technical information for the future. This paper tells the tale of the research literature from the German experience during World War II through the disbanding of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation. (ERA citation 12:047609)