Coal derived petroleum, manufacturing cost

In the United States and most industrialized countries, the practical value of the commercial production of an organic chemical from biomass depends strongly on the availability and price of the same chemical produced from petroleum or natural gas, and occasionally coal. As will be shown shortly, there is no technical barrier that precludes production of commodity chemicals from biomass feedstocks. And it will become evident that many of the more complex organic chemicals are best synthesized from biomass feedstocks or can be extracted from appropriate biomass species. These chemicals can also be synthesized from hydrocarbon feedstocks, but the costs are often prohibitive. In the midst of the fossil fuel era, the less complex, commodity organic chemicals are preferentially manufactured from petroleum or natural gas, whereas complex specialty chemicals are derived from biomass. But commodity organic chemicals are open to entry by biomass feedstocks if they can provide economic advantages. Note that many of the routes described here to commodity chemicals from biomass were in commercial use in the past, are still in commercial use, have recently been commercialized, or have been developed and are available for commercial use. 

Even more dramatic raw material changes have occurred in the supply of organic raw materials. The CPI initially used organic materials derived from farming, fishing, forestry, and animal husbandry sectors. Coal tar and coke oven rose as principal sources for the manufacture of synthetic dyes. In the decades after World War II, coal was displaced as a raw material by natural gas and refined petroleum products because of the lower cost and greater cleanliness of the latter. Early in the twenty-first century, the CPI may have to rely more heavily on vast coal deposits as a resource base, as supplies of oil and natural gas dwindle. 

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