Meeting the challenge of squeezing clean fuels from U.S. coal

The saying goes, ”You can’t get blood out of a stone.”
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.

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.

sltrib