'Coal-to-liquids' fuels brim with promise

"You can't get blood out of a stone," the saying goes. But if liquid fuels are the lifeblood of the transportation sector, then technology and economics have combined to disprove that old saw. You can get blood out of a stone — specifically, diesel and other transportation fuels out of coal, at a price competitive with oil-derived fuels.

That's good news for the United States.

The chemical-industrial process for extracting ultraclean diesel fuel, jet fuel and other products from coal has been around for decades, but only in recent years have advances in technology and the steep increase in the price of oil combined to make "coal-to-liquids" an attractive part of the solution to our pressing energy security and environmental concerns.

Energy security means having reliable, affordable and environmentally sound sources of energy available largely from domestic sources. Coal fits the bill. The United States has more coal resources than any other country — a quarter of the world's total. Coal provides half our electricity. The National Coal Council, an advisory group for the secretary of energy, estimates that our coal supply could support an additional 100 gigawattts of electricity production by 2025, as well as 2.6 million barrels per day of coal-derived fuels, 4 trillion cubic feet annually of synthetic natural gas and other products. The Air Force has successfully tested blends of coal-derived jet fuel in its planes.

Environmental objections to using coal are always raised, but technology is making the objections obsolete. Coal plants are becoming cleaner every year, and in a few years, the United States will have a near-zero-emissions, coal-based demonstration plant called FutureGen up and running. Carbon sequestration and other emissions-reduction technologies can be applied to coal-to-liquids plants, and the primary product, ultraclean diesel fuel, is far cleaner than any diesel fuel or gasoline in use today.

These advantages are obvious and appealing. But building the first few coal-to-liquids plants, as with any new industrial endeavor, will present challenges. The technologies have never been combined in a major project, and no one wants to step out onto the high wire and build a first-of-its-kind plant without some sort of safety net. That's why several bills designed to encourage coal-to-liquids development through loan guarantees and various tax incentive plans are circulating in Congress.

While the legislative wheels grind, developers are working on coal-to-liquids plans with the governors and governments of Alaska, Montana, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Louisiana.