Fuels From The Crypt

By DAVID ELLIS/

Do the dusty notebooks of the Third Reich hold a solution to America's overdependence on imported oil? Researchers at Texas A&M University want to study Nazi war archives to find out. With pioneering technology, the Germans built a system of 26 plants to produce synthetic fuel from coal. Their output totaled 130 million bbl. between 1938 and 1945. The U.S. Bureau of Mines briefly experimented with processing synfuel at a plant in the early 1950s using techniques brought back from Europe by U.S. scientists. Although the plants produced fuel for 1.6 cents per gal., government apathy and the presence of plentiful imported gasoline closed down the project. Arnold Krammer, a history professor who conducted synfuels research during the oil shocks of the 1970s, thinks the time is right to make a comprehensive study of German production techniques. Krammer contends that the research project, which could cost $600,000, would be a bargain if it led to a cheap method for mass producing liquefied coal. Obtaining the documents is easy; they are stored at Texas A&M in a library basement.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen