Coal-to-liquid fuels have no future in Nevada

To the editor:

In response to your Aug. 29 editorial, "Liquefied Coal? Not so far-fetched":

There are many technical and financial reasons why this nearly century-old technology will likely fail in the national marketplace. However, rather than focus on those issues, we want to specifically address why such a proposal would be resoundingly detrimental and unworkable for Nevada's energy future.

The proposed facilities you cited all share two characteristics: ready access to coal and abundant supplies of water. Nevada has neither.

All coal for this process would have to be imported into Nevada at substantial cost. Thus, the cost of importing coal to a Nevada plant makes such a facility uncompetitive with a mine-sited operation.

Additionally, these facilities utilize incredible amounts of water. For instance, the Crow Tribe of Montana development proposal you noted requires the tribe to commit up to 50,000 acre-feet of water each year to the plant for a single 50,000-barrel-per-day facility -- more than 20 gallons of water for each gallon of fuel produced. In contrast, the Southern Nevada Water Authority hopes at some point in the future to import between 40,000 and 60,000 acre feet of water from Spring Valley in White Pine County for the residential and commercial needs of Southern Nevada. If our state's future is to be assured, we simply do not have the excess water resources to squander on coal-to-liquid fuel production in Nevada.

Another constraint, as noted by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, is that Nevada is not suited for sequestering CO₂ underground. The costs and regulatory burdens of a pipeline to move the CO₂ to a potential sequestration site would make an already uncompetitive project even more so.

An additional concern for such a project in Nevada as well as other locations is that investment capital for carbon intensive projects evaporated earlier this year after major investment banks adopted "carbon principles" to evaluate the future economic risks such projects entail. Contrary to your editorial, each of these projects is premised on substantial government subsidies or incentives largely due to the fact that commercial-scale carbon sequestration has never been proved financially or technologically feasible.

Nevada and the Southwest do have the resources necessary to lead the nation in a 21st-century energy policy that protects consumers and the environment as the nation's transportation infrastructure evolves into a more sustainable model that's less dependent on fossil fuels. Properly developed, Nevada's solar, wind and geothermal potential alone far exceeds our electricity demand, allowing Nevada to become an exporter of green energy.

Incorporating 21st century technologies, such as combining plug-in hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles with a "smart" electric grid, and other distributed energy sources such as fuel cells and rooftop solar installations, will create jobs, help regain the nation's technological edge and address the growing concerns about fossil fuels and related CO₂ emissions. Both GM and Toyota intend to market plug-in hybrid vehicles by the 2010 model year, and investment in the nation's electric grid and new technologies is a more rational approach than investing tens of billions of dollars in outdated and carbon-intensive coal-to-liquid fuel plants.

Nevada is an ideal place to start this transition.

JON WELLINGHOFF

WASHINGTON, D.C.

TIMOTHY HAY

RENO

MR. WELLINGHOFF WAS NEVADA'S FIRST CONSUMER ADVOCATE AND WAS RECENTLY REAPPOINTED BY PRESIDENT BUSH TO THE FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION FOR A SECOND TERM. MR. HAY IS A FORMER CONSUMER ADVOCATE AND FORMER MEMBER OF THE NEVADA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION.

Way out there

To the editor:

Erin Neff's Thursday column, "Code words can't obscure GOP's racial politics," was a real piece of work. I suggest that she check to find out what they put in the Kool-Aid at the Democratic National Convention that causes paranoia. Her conclusion that the comments of Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani are coded racist remarks is comparable to the recent Newsweek article that claimed if you didn't vote for Barack Obama, you were a racist.

Let's look at the issue at hand. We are trying to select the CEO of the most powerful country in the world. The real question that Gov. Palin, the GOP's vice presidential nominee, and Mr. Giuliani raised in their speeches was not about the sincerity and value of community organizers, but what skills, attributes and executive experience Sen. Obama gathered to qualify him to be president. We are all trying to decide who we want to be the leader of the free world. To raise that question is not a racist issue.

Voters want to know what qualifies Sen. Obama to be our president. Give me three things, other than writing a couple of books about himself, that Sen. Obama has accomplished. Give me one important decision he has made where the success or failure and the resultant credit or blame fell squarely on his shoulders. Where is an example of courage to take risks, rather than to verbally equivocate?

The one area where we agree is that some of these sound bites taken out of context are an unnecessary distraction. Both sides are guilty. Sen. Obama's "lipstick" comment was taken out of context, as was Sen. John McCain's remark about being in Iraq for 100 years and about $5 million making someone rich. The worn-out, repeated DNC talking point that a McCain presidency amounts to a third Bush term falls in the same category.

It is all nonsense! The ridiculous charges and countercharges could easily be dealt with in a stand-alone town hall meeting, where each could confront the other. Just where is the man who claimed he would debate Sen. McCain anytime, anywhere -- hiding behind his teleprompter, I suspect.

The contrived indignation of both parties over twisted quotes and out-of-control supporters and surrogates is almost humorous until you realize that people do take them seriously.

For Ms. Neff to contrive the Palin and Giuliani remarks as racist is completely out of bounds. Sen. Obama is the only candidate who has raised his race as an issue. Objectivity does not have to be an attribute of a left-wing columnist, so I guess we'll just have to cut her some slack.

BILL THOMPSON

LAS VEGAS

What a reach

To the editor:

Regarding Erin Neff's Thursday Review-Journal column and Rudy Giuliani's statement that he doesn't know what a community organizer does, how does that constitute code relating to Sen. Barack Obama's race? Are all "community organizers" black? I don't think so.

Besides that, does Mr. Giulaini need to send us code words that Sen. Obama is black, or do you think we can figure that out on our own?

Paul Whiteley

LAS VEGAS

Political fraud

To the editor:

I've seen TV ads sponsored by "Divided We Fail" claiming that "1.85 million Americans go bankrupt due to medical bills in one year." That number seemed high to me. I visited the group's Web site, which is linked to AARP, to see if I'd heard wrong, but the site claims "millions" each year.

I wondered about their methodology. How had they determined that medical bills were a significant factor in bankruptcy filings? Looking into that, however, I found that the total U.S. bankruptcies were just under 1 million last year, and that was up from prior years.

So where, exactly, did the 1.85 million come from? Apparently, you don't actually have to file for bankruptcy for AARP to claim you've been bankrupted by medical bills.

In my opinion, this goes way beyond simply massaging legitimate statistics to fit an agenda and borders on fraud. I'd love to hear an AARP representative explain how they cooked up their numbers, but I doubt we will.

Angela Mancuso

NORTH LAS VEGAS