Coal-to-liquid plants may soon become a reality in U.S.

It’s largely escaped notice, but there are already a dozen or so coal-to-liquids plants in various stages of development around the country.

While most are years away from construction, supporters of converting coal to motor fuels say at least some are a certainty — even if Congress doesn’t approve incentives sought by coal-to-liquids supporters.

Yet supporters consider some form of subsidy vital if the nation is going to build enough coal to liquid plants to dent its reliance on foreign oil.
“It has the potential to be a meaningful supply of fuel that would take the price off of gasoline and diesel fuel and would take the dependence down on the Middle East.” said Don Blankenship, chief executive of Massey Energy Co., the nation’s fourth-largest coal producer by revenue.

One plant is fairly far along. Los Angeles-based Rentech Inc. bought a natural gas-fed fertilizer plant in East Dubuque, Ill., and hopes to convert to using coal by the end of 2009 or 2010. Production would start low — 920 tons of fertilizer and 1,800 barrels of diesel a day.

That’s at once a drop in the bucket compared with the nation’s energy use and, to the industry’s way of thinking, a big step in the right direction. Rentech Chief Executive Hunt Ramsbottom and others figure at least one of several larger proposed plants will be built.

Charleston Daily Mail