Liquefied coal? Not so far-fetched

Harken back to Nevada's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, when Jim Gibbons was roundly ridiculed by the Democratic establishment and its media enablers for suggesting the state develop a liquefied coal industry as part of its alternative energy portfolio.

Gov. Gibbons was dismissed as a quack, a coal lobby lackey and an environmental terrorist for pointing out that solar, wind and geothermal power won't fill the fuel tanks of the cars and jetliners that bring millions of tourists to the Las Vegas Valley each year. At the time, gasoline cost a little more than $2 per gallon.

Fast forward to today, with Nevada's tourism trade slumping as a result of $4-per-gallon gasoline. And what do you know, McClatchy Newspapers reports that in response to high oil prices, about a dozen global companies are planning to build multibillion-dollar liquefied coal complexes around the United States over the next decade. Commercial airlines and the U.S. military are among the entities examining the long-term savings of switching their fleets to coal-to-liquid fuel.

Already, the Crow Tribe of Montana has contracted with an Australian corporation to build a $7 billion plant. A plant in southern Wyoming, expected to be operational by 2013, will make gasoline for the Denver area. And a plant under construction in Oakland, Ill., should begin producing 30,000 barrels of fuel a day as soon as 2012.

And unlike the aforementioned renewable technologies, the infant liquefied coal trade is growing without the benefit of federal subsides. It would certainly appreciate some government handouts and contracts, considering the widespread political support for its competition, but its leaders are smart enough to know that likely won't happen anytime soon. Not with environmental extremists in control of the congressional agenda.

Groups such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council -- coddled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- oppose mining any of this country's massive coal reserves to produce energy, claiming use of the resource worsens global warming.

But coal-to-liquid proponents say the process of producing liquefied coal emits no global warming pollutants. "Carbon dioxide from coal is pumped into the ground -- the technical term is sequestered -- and used to force out deposits of hard-to-get oil," McClatchy Newspapers reports. "Sulfur and other chemicals are also stripped out and developed into marketable byproducts."

Coal-to-liquid technology is nothing new. The Nazis used the Fischer-Tropsch process to fuel Germany's 20th-century war efforts. Planned American plants would mimic that method or use a gasification technique to produce gasoline.

Yes, the cost of constructing coal-to-liquid plants is substantial. But guess what? These enterprises are covering costs on their own because the volatile oil futures market has made their business an attractive, potentially high-growth investment.

Such facts won't win many converts in Washington or Carson City. Not when Democrats are determined to pick "market" winners and losers on their own. But Nevadans would be foolish to dismiss out of hand any technology that might keep tourists -- and their money -- pouring into Las Vegas.