Can coal replace oil?
This is pretty interesting. Apparently there is a 70-year-old method of converting coal into gasoline and diesel fuel that, if implemented with America’s vast coal supply, could power us for the next 40 years. The cost to start it with a plant in Montana, where 1/3 of the nation’s coal is located? About 1.5 billion dollars. A whole lot cheaper than the Iraq war.
Of course, I have mixed feelings about this, after having seen the horrors that coal mining inflicts upon the land in the Appalachians. And the coal-fired electrical power plants we have now are in serious need of overhaul and cleanup. Bush’s energy bill “grandfathered” older coal plants so that they would not be subject to the same environmental standards as new plants.
Coal is dirty. It’s sooty and gross, and you have to blow up mountains to get to it. And we’re going to run out of it. But… we don’t have the perfect solution to the oil problem yet, and this method, on its surface, seems to do a lot less harm than oil does, ecomonically and envioronmentally. And it could save us from having to deal with the middle east for our energy needs.
I dunno…. maybe for 1.5 billion it’s worth a try.