NOV 19

Sure, coal may be dirty, but I can;t help but think I would rather depend on American Coal than Middle Eastern Oil.
Keep up the good articles. I am a lurker.

Coal is still dirty, but wouldn't it be more efficient to burn it to produce electricity and run cars off that?

Coal to liquid fuels (CTL) has been around for a long time and isn't really new. CTL was done in large scale by the Nazi regime in WWII and also under Apartheid in South Africa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...ch_process

Yeah but the Nazis had technology like the Haunebu and the Vril craft (now the property of the US govt.), cause that kinda thing isn't new either.

Yes liquid coal has been around for a long time. Yes our electric plants and vehicles can use it, so we are not depended on oil rich Arab countries. Yes the Nazis produced many technological advances, but Northern Germany is still recovering from their extensive coal use. The reason we don't learn from history is because we want to filter it through rose colored glasses. The streets and buildings of London, Paris, and Berlin once were smeared with the effects of industrial coal plants. Do you want to live in a world covered with soot? We can find the answers to our power problems through green technology. Support green!!

So now instead of burning oil, which is made of deceased plankton, we are burning coal, which is made of deceased plants that are not necessarily plankton…I see a trend here. Is there any chance that the United States, or perhaps the world, could benefit from a product that was not initially made from some other life form that bit the dust? (I.e. whale oil, fur coats, the land and natural resources originally held by the Native Americans.)

Liquid coal made with carbon sequestration would be as clean or cleaner than conventional oil/gas/diesel. Carbon sequestration has been proven at Kinder Morgan in Texas where over 1 billion cu-ft of co2 is captured daily and pumped underground for storage forever. Water can be recycled, and moutain tops can be redeveloped into lakes and forrest land. I have seen pictures of redeveloped coal mines, so I am not convinced it destroys as much as claimed. We only have 35-50 years left on conventioal oil anyway, and need to be open to all sources of energy if we expect human life to continue on this planet. The global warming crisis 100 years out will be a non issue in 50 years when the world runs out of oil and starves to death.

For years now we so called green technology telling us to clean up our act. So far these same people have not really come up with any viable alternatives, they advise what you cant use and why you cant use it, all green power is fairly ineffective and extremely expensive to produce, note without what the greens call dirty technology there would be no power to produce clean green technology products. We all talk about global warming gee it was hot today or yesterday?? The evidence is it not that we have not had any evidence of global warming for atleast 6 years maybe more, is it not also true that the planet we call earth has sufferred from global warming/freezing before now and will in the future, the sun which warms our planet which has cycles of where solar flares are produced have a greater impact with a more immediate response to our weather than this percieved threat of progress based global warming, tides are ruled by the moon, temperature is ruled by the sun to say otherwise is nonesense, if this is incorrect turn out the sun and global warming I assure you will not be a concern. I'm not suggesting that we ignore all commonsense and turn our planet into a massive garbage tip where no one can live, but it doesn't make sense either to say lets just hibernate for fear of our own retribution.
Green scare mongering supports a huge industry in green technology, if there was no money in it there would be no hype, question is, is it the answer, if it was I think it would be in use predominantly not minority not alot of thought required there.
If the coal industry can prove that what they are saying is correct then we should run with it if not then seek alternatives and these alternatives have been out there since the inception of oil useage none have taken over to date why and dont say money its practicality.