What is Liquid Coal?
Posted on June 11, 2007 – 12:19 pm by admin
I receive a bunch of email from a bunch of politcal groups…they are all over the place. From conservative to liberal to just stupid. I like to see what people are pushing.
This morning, I received an especially interesting email from MoveOn.org, a liberal group. It deals with Liquid Coal, the current legislation in congress and that the bill should be stopped.
Here is what they said…
“The idea of turning coal into liquid to fill our gas tanks should just be a bad joke. But because the coal industry pours millions into lobbying Congress every year, this joke could turn into a real nightmare.1
The senate is about to vote on a big bill dealing with energy and the climate crisis. Massive subsidies for coal were defeated in committee. But we’re not out of the woods yet, since one of the coal-friendly senators could sneak them back in again as an amendment just before the final vote.
Liquid coal is a giant step backward in our fight against global warming—it produces twice as many greenhouse gases as conventional gasoline. Proposals to capture that pollution before it adds to global warming are still a pipe dream.2
We have to reduce the greenhouse gases already in our air to stave off the worst effects of climate change—disease, drought, rising seas—so you’d think a giant program to make liquid coal a cornerstone of our economy would be too outrageous to consider. But continued pressure from the coal industry means key legislators introduce it over and over again.
Even the Roanoke Times, in the heart of coal country, condemned government promotion of liquid coal:
Coal-to-liquid technology is expensive, harmful to the environment and inefficient. The federal government should take no part in subsidizing it…Liquefying coal is not the answer to either energy independence or a cleaner environment.3
Some senators are standing strong against this false promise—Jon Tester from coal-rich Montana has said there should be no liquid coal without proven ways to capture the greenhouse gases.4
But others are risking our future with dirty energy bills instead of supporting clean and affordable alternatives—like solar and wind.”
I thought this email was interesting because I never even heard of liquid coal, and I have heard of a lot of stuff.
Apparently, the jury is still out on this technology. Some people like it, such as these guys, but others don’t think that it can be produced without making a bigger mess than we are already in, such as…
- David Roberts – MoveOn fights liquid coal
- Stop Liquid Coal: Sign this Moveon.org Petition
- Liquid Coal is A Really Bad Idea
So what’s the deal with liquid coal? Is it a good idea, but just a bad process to create it? I heard a while ago that ethanol was a great idea, but actually uses more energy to make is than it can produce. I gave that one a pass because I think the creation process can be better in the future.
What’s your take?
One Response to “What is Liquid Coal?”
By Tim Colman on Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
The problem isn’t just liquifying coal — in fact there may be some common green sense to expecting coal to be in our nation’e energy diet for years to come.
The problem is we have something like 120 new coal plants slated to start up, we have the push for liquifying coal, and we have oil industry pushing hard for drilling in the melting permafrost of Canada and Alaska.
To much business as usual as IF it is 1950 and not 2007 in the beginning of a CO2 crisis.
If there was technology coming online to drive CO2 under ground.
If there was a big push for alternative energy investments.
If we didn’t already have too much crap being dumped in the atmosphere.
So — no more liquified coal until we get the other IF’s answered.
best fishes,
Timothy