Adapted and excerpted from an op-ed in the Sunday Gazette-Mail, Sept. 3, 2006

by Vivian Stockman

Gov. Manchin chairs both the state’s Public Energy Authority and the Southern States Energy Board. Both groups are very interested in processing coal into liquid fuels.

News reports say governors and legislators make up the Southern States Energy Board, neglecting to mention the group’s "Associate Members." They include the National Mining Association, National Coal Council, Peabody Energy, American Electric Power and other coal-burning utilities.

No wonder the board is promoting legislation giving big subsidies, tax breaks, government-insurance programs and loans to fund construction of these hugely expensive, highly polluting plants.

Because there’s debate about whether the energy used in making corn into ethanol is worth the energy gained in the final product, I’ve asked representatives of both boards about the energy equation in the coal to liquid process. So far, no answer on that.

While this information – crucial in determining if coal-to-liquid makes sense – is missing from the presentation, other startling information screams "No! Coal-to-liquid does not make sense!" despite the limits of oil supplies worldwide:

N Emissions of carbon dioxide with coal-to-liquid will be nearly twice as high as using petroleum fuels. Carbon dioxide is a major culprit in human-induced global warming, which even the Pentagon has labeled a greater security threat than terrorism. Given the overwhelming urgency of our need to curb global warming, coal-to-liquid technology is absolutely unacceptable.

N If 90 percent of the CO2 created by converting coal into liquids were sequestered underground, then the emissions would be nearly comparable to petroleum.

In July, a Reuter’s article, "Concerns Rise About CO2 Burial," noted that hundreds have died from leaks of naturally occurring underground CO2. In August, Oxford Analytica stated that carbon sequestration is currently commercially unviable and extremely costly. It warns that investing in this technology is risky and could crowd out opportunities for cleaner and sustainable energy sources.

N To produce one barrel of coal-to-liquid, a refinery uses 2.5 barrels of water. Even China, which had embraced coal-to-liquid, is now cooling its heels, saying coal shouldn’t be converted to liquid car fuel because of concerns over pollution and the volumes of water consumed.

N The National Coal Council envisions a doubling of national coal production, and a $515 billion investment in coal-to-liquid plants, in order to produce 2.6 million barrels of fuel a day, or 10 percent of current U.S. oil demand. (The council says the plants would also provide some electricity, natural gas, ethanol and hydrogen.) Just one plant producing 80,000 barrels of coal-to-liquid fuel a day would cost $6.5 billion. Even Public Energy Authority members have admitted difficulty finding investors willing to help fund coal-to-liquid plants.

Can our communities and environment really bear a doubling of coal mining production, considering that even coal lobbyists say most of the easily mined coal is gone? Coal extraction results in enormous social and environmental costs, which are borne by society now and into the future, but not by the coal operators. Ask the sick citizens of Rawl, Lick Creek and Merrimac in Mingo County, whose wells are apparently contaminated by coal-processing wastes, about the costs of coal extraction that they bear.

The Public Energy Authority needs to ask itself if hundreds of billions of dollars that could go into coal-to-liquid plants might be better used advancing truly clean renewable energy. In Colorado, utility rate payers asked the Public Service Commission to replace subsidies for coal with incentives for concentrating solar power plants, which are cost competitive with fossil fuel plants. Concentrating solar power plants, unlike solar panels, produce steam, (like coal-fired plants) with mirrors that gather sunlight.

West Virginia’s Public Energy Authority should study whether current sun-baked mountaintop removal wastelands, devoid of trees, could be sites for concentrated solar power. If such solar plants are feasible here, that’s no excuse for one more inch of mountaintop removal, not until the hundreds of thousands of acres of existing mined sites are covered in concentrating solar power plants. And by then, surely, we will recognize the value, the need for saving our remaining forests and streams.