Coal to Liquid Plan Means a Kentucky Fried Earth

[depakid]

An announcement today for plans to construct a $4 billion coal to liquid fuel facility in Kentucky is a sign of the desperate times America is in.

Converting coal to liquid fuel has not been used on a large scale since the 1930’s when Nazi Germany developed the technology because the country had lots of coal but no petroleum of its own.

But the sell-job is well underway right now in Kentucky to re-frame coal to liquid as a miracle answer to America’s energy woes.

One proponent of the Kentucky project went so far as to state that:

“(This) will allow the United States to become energy independent and free of foreign oil, and money going overseas can actually be invested back in the United States.”

In the same vein is this quote from a local Kentucky newspaper:

The coal industry and its supporters say such efforts could help wean the nation from its reliance on foreign oil for transportation. They insist that the technology would strengthen national security and be cheaper than petroleum.

The United States currently burns through about 20 million barrels of oil a day. The Kentucky coal to liquid plant is projected to produce 50,000 barrels a day — a far cry from the grand promise of energy independence. Pardon my rough math (and love of simply stated facts) but based on the coal to liquid model being proposed in Kentucky, we would need to build at least 120 such projects to produce 6 million barrels of oil a day — at a start-up cost for all the plants of around $480 billion.

Doesn’t look like much of a silver bullet to me.

More (including outlinks): http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/16/10395/