Low BTU Producer Gas -- A Fuel of the Past and a Fuel of the Future

A prime purpose of this paper is to give conscious emphasis to an important type of coal gasification, one that does not demand hundreds of millions of dollars to launch an experimental program but instead is essentially ready to use after a reasonable and straightforward engineering check-out of the local coal sources and the prospective gas demand. That type of coal gasification results in low Btu producer gas. This paper deals with its history, its technology and its economics. In the light of that information, the future of low Btu producer gas in America then is assessed