The Karrick process is a named variant of Low-Temperature Carbonization (LTC) attributed to the engineer Lewis Cass Karrick. It is the central subject of the source dossier ingested as [source note 1].
What it is claimed to do
The dossier presents the process as a route to liquid fuel and co-products from coal and oil shale. Its stated claims are:
- Yield — the dossier reports roughly 30 gallons of crude oil per ton of coal (crackable to about 10 gal gasoline), together with combustible gas and a smokeless solid fuel.
- Efficiency — the dossier argues the process is economical and that heat can be recovered between retorts, but supplies no comparative thermal-efficiency measurement against high-temperature coking.
- Feedstock breadth — the source describes treatment of Utah coals and of representative samples from Wyoming and Idaho; it does not discuss oil shale.
Mechanism
The process operates by destructive distillation: heating the feedstock without oxygen so that volatiles and tars are driven off and collected while a carbon-rich solid residue remains. See Low-Temperature Carbonization (LTC) for the general chemistry and Destructive Distillation for the underlying principle.
Evidence status
All three claims above are source assertions from an archive compilation. The ingested dossier supplies no controlled experiments, no mass or energy balance, and no third-party replication. The yield figure in particular should be attributed to the dossier rather than stated as an established result. A claim-by-claim treatment is at Karrick Claims vs. Evidence: The Dossier's Assertions and the Absence of Test Data.
Historical framing
The dossier is a 1932 University of Utah thesis by Larsen & Stutz advocating a commercial test plant; it argues the process is justifiable and economical but does not present a displacement-by-petroleum-interests narrative.
Related
Source notes & attribution
- rexresearch/d7457570dbc786b7.md
- https://rexresearch.com/karrick/1larstz.htm