KY: Plans Unveiled For Four Billion Dollar Coal To Liquid Fuel Plant

[phantom power]

A one year study shows the Big Shoal site in Pikeville is the best spot, and now state and federal officials are jumping on board, saying Monday we need to build this to slash gas prices, and help the Appalachian economy.

Pike County and state leaders say billions of tons of coal leaves the region.

“We want that to change,” says Wayne T. Rutherford, Pike County Judge-Executive.

Instead, the plan is to keep it in eastern Kentucky, and go to Pike County and turn into liquid fuel.

http://www.wkyt.com/news/headlines/25440369.html

[Indenturedebtor]

1. I think the plan is to turn KY into a giant bowling alley/air hockey table

By flattening every mountain :(

[kristopher]

2. That's where I was born, Pikeville Hosp.

We lived in a holler called Cold Water. We left when I was 7 but until I was nearly middle aged I always thought it was 'Coal Water'.

Two persistent vivid memories: poverty and gray coal dust coating everything, plants, houses, cars..

Small mountain hugging roads running along the Big Sandy river with a steady stream of monsterous coal trucks threatening to run our car off the side of the mountain.

I've been back once, but I doubt I'll ever return.

[phantom power]

3. I think coal will continue to be an irresistable temptation.

It's cheap, domestic and available in large quantities. It can be turned into motor fuel, which is a proposal that has enjoyed bipartisan support at least since Jimmy Carter, and Obama appears to be no exception.

[kgrandia]

5. Factcheck: Coal to liquid

I did a page of coal to liquid facts a bit ago, here it is: http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/fact-check-coal-to-liquid

Here it is without the links (takes way too long to add them all in):

The idea of converting coal to liquid fuel (known as coal-to-liquids or CTL) is not new.

In fact, the technology was developed in Nazi Germany during the 1930s to fill Hitler’s army vehicles with synthetic fuel derived from coal, since the country had lots of coal but no petroleum of its own.

The use of coal as a fuel for motor vehicles was further perfected by the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The United States hasn’t placed much emphasis on coal to liquids in the past, due to our heavy reliance on petroleum products for transportation fuels. But as oil prices climb, along with gas prices at the pump, the idea of making motor fuels out of domestic coal has been advocated as a solution to our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Beyond the obvious implications of increased coal mining and hazardous pollution that would result from a coal-to-liquids scheme, using liquid coal as a transportation fuel would nearly double the amount of global warming pollution per gallon of fuel compared to petroleum.

At a time when the world’s leading scientists say we need to cut our emissions by at least 80 percent to curtail destructive climate change, the idea of nearly doubling global warming pollution from liquid coal fuels ought to be tossed aside as a no-brainer.

Furthermore, as NRDC points out, “it would be the height of folly to invest in just another technology that drives us further down the path to dependency on carbon fuels.”
But the coal industry is currently lobbying for a huge funding increase for liquid coal projects. The National Mining Association and its coal industry constituents have launched a front group called the “Coal to Liquids Coalition” to lobby Congress and “educate” the public about coal’s virtues for our car-dependent culture.



Watch the spoof ad that Mark Fiore and NRDC produced about liquid coal here.

[phantom power]

6. I agree completely. But I predict we're going to do it.

[Ganja Ninja]

4. Having a couple of plants like these held in reserve ...

might be a viable alternative to buying more oil to fill the strategic reserve. It is money spent here and would put people to work. I just hate to see them become operational unless absolutely necessary.

[Strelnikov_]

7. Ok. $4B for 50 kbbl/dy

Current consumption of motor fuels is 67% of 20.5 Mbbl/dy = 13,735 kbbl/dy. So for $4 B we satisfy 0.364% of our motor fuel needs.

To satisfy all of our motor fuel needs, leaving the remaining 33% to domestic petroleum production, we would need to spend $1,099 B (say $1.1 T in round numbers).

And the price tag for the Iraq debacle is currently estimated at $2 T, to secure, what, 6 Mbbl/dy at best.

Yea, that was a good investment.

(standard current-era DU disclaimer: I am not promoting CTL, simply pointing out the magnitude of the fiscal black hole that is Iraq).


Another way to look at it, we could build 2.5 of these plants per month for what we are spending in Iraq. We would need 275 of these plants, so in 110 months, or about nine years, we would be built out. And we have been in Iraq, what, ~ 5.5 years, with no end in sight.

[NNadir]

8. I am quite sure there will be a coal to oil orgy before it's all over.

I'm quite sure that at least a trillion tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste from this source will be dumped, and for the whole time, car culture apologists will come here with talk - and nothing more than talk - about hydrogen hypercars and brazillion miles per gallone et cetera et cetera.