What Brian Schweitzer Didn't Say About Coal Liquefaction On 60 Minutes

[hatrack]

EDIT

Working off a transcript of the show, the Missoulian's State Bureau examined the reality behind the rhetoric:

1) Schweitzer and Princeton University scientist Robert Williams said the process doesn't burn coal, and therefore produces virtually no pollutants. True? The process, known as Fischer-Tropsch, gasifies coal through a super-heating process before converting it to liquid diesel fuel. The process still creates potentially harmful byproducts like mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide, but instead of going out a smokestack, they are stripped away and can be converted into other industrial uses, such as fertilizer.

2) Williams noted the process still creates large amounts of carbon dioxide, believed to be a major cause of global warming.

It's true that coal-to-fuels conversion creates substantial carbon dioxide, which scientists consider a greenhouse gas. The question becomes whether that CO2 is “captured” or just vented into the air. And even if most of the carbon dioxide from a coal-to-fuels plant is captured, the entire process does nothing to reduce overall greenhouse gases, says Joseph Romm, a physicist with the Global Environment and Technology Foundation in Arlington, Va. It still produces diesel fuel, which is burned and creates carbon dioxide.

3) CBS News correspondent Lesley Stahl said Schweitzer has “promised” not to allow release of carbon dioxide, by selling it to oil companies for injection into the ground.

But Montana has no legal requirements that would force a coal-to-fuels plant owner to capture its carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide can be sold to oil companies for injection into oil fields. The CO2 is then trapped underground and creates pressure that forces out more oil.

EDIT

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/03/05/news/local/news07.txt

[phantom power]

1. Well. As long as they PROMISE. What could go wrong?

[dogman]

2. The article leaves out the true cost of imported petroleum.

How many American lives? How much of the trade deficit? Is the pollutant level compared to the present level of refining and consumption? As I heard Schweitzer on Franken, he sees this as a temporary alternative until other technologies are refined. CO2 is presently used in the oil fields, why wouldn't companies use it? If present law does require the capture the solution would be to pass legislation in the Bills that would create this program. Why must we assume it's up to private industry? They did not create the space program either.