ASSIGNMENT 1.

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(a) Discuss the societal impact of a major national program to develop synthetic fuel (liquid
and gaseous) from coal. (It has been estimated that to reach the level of supply equal to the
imports from OPEC countries would require over 50 installations, each costing several billion
dollars.)
Synthetic fuel is a liquid fuel, or sometimes gaseous fuel, obtained from syngas, a mixture of
carbon monoxide and hydrogen, in which the syngas was derived from gasification of solid
feed stocks such as coal or biomass or by reforming of natural gas. One concern commonly
raised about the development of synthetic fuels plants is sustainability. The change in
thinking, from fixing environmental problems at the discharge end of the pipe or smokestack
to sustainable development, places engineering design at the heart of the issue.
Environmental issues are given higher priority in design. Product must be designed to make
them easier to reuse, recycle, or incinerate a concept often called green design. Green design
also involves the detailed understanding of the environmental impact of products and
processes over their entire life cycle. There are lots of positive and negative sides in
developing synthetic fuel (liquid and gaseous) from coal.
The positive societal impacts of major national program to develop synthetic fuel from coal
are:
a) Reducing Greenhouse Emission
In many ways synthetic fuels are cleaner than petroleum fuels. The contaminants that exist in
the petroleum fuel do not exist in the synthetic fuels. The heavy metal and sulphur are all
taken out before the fuel being shipped out. Though synthetic fuel does use coal as one of its
ingredient, it also uses lots of plants. These plants are certainly not food materials as this will
hurt the food industry; instead these plants are grows especially for synthetic oil production.
These plants will absorb CO2 as it grows and thus help reducing the greenhouse effect.
(b) Reducing Dependency On Other Countries
For a country that does not produce oil, it will certainly be dependent on others country for
their oil consumption and it is certainly no secret that fossil fuel is widely used from power
generation to transportation. There will be lots of disaster should the supply chain is
interrupted. Thus, by developing synthetic fuel program, a country can be truly independent
from others and will have no limitations in developing itself further.

(c) Job Opportunities

The development of synthetic fuel will surely require lots of new infrastructures and research,
thus creating new job opportunities for the people. This can certainly be a catalyst for the
economy of the country grows. For example, in Malaysia, the creating of their own brand of
national car has created lots of jobs for their people. The manufacturing process of building a
car requires lots of parts. Meaning that a lot of people will be involved in the process thus
creating lots of jobs

(d) New Market

As of now, synthetic fuel is not widely used due the easily available crude oil. Thus, by
developing this branch of energy, there can a lot of advantages by being one of the first
movers in the market. Though there has been some objection due to the steep price needed to
extract these fuel, a recent Princeton article suggested that if the price of crude oil per barrel
stays within the 60 -100 per dollar, the synthetic fuel can still be productive.
The negative societal impacts of major national program to develop synthetic fuel from coal
are:
a) High cost
The researchers found that the largest contributor to the price of synthetic fuel would be the
cost of building the plants, followed by the purchase of biomass and then electricity. The cost
could be much lower if plants eliminated biomass and used only coal and natural gas to run
the process.
b) Not necessarily
Petroleum and natural gas are readily available, relatively cheap and likely to remain that way
for a considerable time yet and also the technology of synthetic fuels is not reliable as natural
gas.
c) Hazardous and inconvenient
A sizable increase in the use of coal is hazardous to the environment and human health such
as water pollution, excessive carbon dioxide at atmosphere, etc. Solid fossil fuels are energy

of the past, not of the future. In this modern era, science should move in one direction like
from atom, solar energy, genetic engineering of biomass resources. Also, dealing with solid
fossil fuels which is bulky and dirty is not so convenient.
d) Less skilled workers in synthetic fuel field
Even synthetic fuel is not a new idea anymore; nevertheless this concept has not been wholly
used yet. Thus, most people think that this field will not be a great deal in the future in which
has caused less people to be interested in majoring in this scope. Synthetic fuel can still be
considered as a new development in the field because research and investment still need to be
done in order to make the production economically viable. Because the number of the
workers that specialized in this field is less, the development of the synthetic fuel is not
expected as it should be.

e) Less effective due to conventional fuel still can be used

People do not feel intimidated when using familiar things because they already have
experienced it and they were either pleased with the outcome or at least not horrified by it.
That is, they know, by using it, any intolerable outcome can be expected or dealt with.
Synthetic fuel has not been commercialized enough to gain peoples trust to use it and also
people will think why the need to use synthetic fuel while conventional oil is still available
and much cheaper than synthetic fuel. Since people have always been using conventional
fuel, they might not be ready to use synthetic fuel due to their expectations on bad outcomes.

(b) Do you feel there is a basic difference in the perception by society of the impact of a
synthetic fuel program compared with the impact of nuclear energy? Why?
Yes, there is a basic difference in the perception by society of the synthetic fuel and nuclear
energy. This is due to:
a) Negative mind set of society about nuclear energy
Society's mind set about nuclear energy is focusing only on bomb as a weapon. Besides, the
way nuclear energy projects are implemented makes it difficult for civil society to feel
associated with its benefits, and thereby to accept its risks. Nuclear energy projects give an
image of benefiting only companies, utilities, and their shareholders, while society, especially
local population, is subjected to the burdens and risks associated with the construction and
operation of industrial facilities. Furthermore, irresponsible company that release nuclear
radiation around the surrounding lead people to thinks that there are no benefits of
implementing the nuclear as an energy resource .In addition, there is no alternative from the
company that run the nuclear project to avoid the bad effects of nuclear on environment and
people health.
b) Fear the possibility of nuclear plant leakage
Radiation that comes from plant nuclear leakage can cause cancer (although it is a very low
risk) and that might involve pain and suffering so people fear it. As we know, radiation is
spreading around and risking people to have disabled children. Beside, nuclear plant is easy
to leakage and explodes if there is no proper method and procedure to handle nuclear project.
For the financial aspect, society has to spend their money in order to obtain some treatments
for the illness that come from the nuclear radiation.
c) Fear of nuclear accident
Society is so struck by fear with anything related to nuclear power. This is due to the fact that
in recent decades, many catastrophic nuclear accident leads to mega devastation and nuclear
pollution that contaminated the area surrounding the accident for hundreds of years to come
and not to mention genetic mutation to humans and animals living near the area of accident.
Due to these past experience such as in Chernobyl and Fukushima, society in still skeptical
and struck by fear to the usage of nuclear power as alternative source of power. Compared to
synthetic fuel program, nuclear power can leads to catastrophic accident and cost lives of the
present and the future. Society has perception that if there were to be any accident caused by

synthetic fuel program sites, it still would not be as dangerous and catastrophic that of nuclear
plant.
d) Lower danger and occurrence of synthetic fuel program accident
Compared to nuclear energy program, synthetic fuel program is much more accepted by the
society, due to the fact that till now, there are no incident involving synthetic fuel program
and if there are to be, it does not leads to big damage and impact such as nuclear plant
accident. Society feels that the risk and danger is far lower than that of nuclear energy
program. For instance nuclear accident would bring damage to the surrounding of the
environment for a long time and far too many people would be affected by this. The danger is
much more than that of synthetic fuel program site. Till now, there are not much incident
involving synthetic fuel program site, and society more accepting it compared to nuclear
energy program.