I confess I'm not quite sure what to make of Montana governor Brian Schweitzer's grand scheme to make the U.S. energy independent with coal-to-fuel conversion. The NYT makes only passing reference to the pollution generated -- "what is new is the technology that removes and stores the pollutants during and after the making of synthetic fuel" -- and Schweitzer seems slightly too pat about the consequences of mining the coal:
Mr. Schweitzer said the mining could be done in a way that restored the land afterward. "I call it deep farming," he said. "You take away the top eight inches of soil, remove the seam of coal, and then put the topsoil back in."
Yes, because farming has been so kind to the Western prairie ...
Naturally, my environmental spidey-sense tingles at this sort of stuff. Will the mining really be done carefully? Will restoration really be a priority? Are the pollutants really "removed and stored" safely? I know very little about the process, technically speaking, and would love to be enlightened by an educated reader. But methinks when it comes to energy extraction in the West, an enormous dose of skepticism is warranted.
Still.
We obviously can't keep using oil for fuel, at least not exclusively. We all want clean energy, including Schweitzer -- "He is also promoting wind energy and the use of biofuels, using oil from crops like soybeans as a blend. The governor signed a measure this year that requires Montana to get 10 percent of its energy from wind power by 2010, a goal he said would be reached within a few years." -- but it's clear that even under the most optimistic scenarios, we need some bridging technologies. We'll have to make some compromises, and it looks like the green community is coming to terms with that fact:
One surprising thing, thus far, is that many people in the environmental community have not rejected the coal-to-fuel idea out of hand. Environmentalists like the process for producing clean fuels from coal. They say the technology is there and it can be done in coal-rich empty quarters of eastern Montana, North Dakota or Wyoming.
...
"It's a very interesting moment in energy history," said Ralph Cavanagh, an energy policy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation's most powerful environmental groups. "Certainly this process can be done. This is a promising direction. The question is, Are we going to do it clean?"
Certainly Schweitzer is pitching this the right way, inveighing against "the best Congress that Big Oil can buy" and so on. However ambivalent I am about the positive program, it only benefits us all to have that critique getting more press.
So what do y'all think?
Comments
View as Flat
Sarpy Sam Posted 7:31 am
21 Nov 2005
First off I can't argue with your comments on farming the western prairie. It doesn't work real well. I will defend Montana's reclamation laws though. They are some of the toughest in the country <u>now</u>. Yes historically we got left with a lot of problems but now the mines have to reclaim the land to its original state. A very tall order they do very well, I live next to a coal mine and see the process on a daily basis.
I will take exception to the article and Schweitzer's statements that the environmental community likes the idea.
Memo: Coal-to-fuels process big polluter - billingsgazette.com
As can be seen by the article the Northern Plains resource Council states,
Contrary to claims by Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a large coal-to-liquid fuels plant in Montana would be a major polluter and wouldn't do much to offset foreign fuel imports, says a memo prepared for one of the state's leading conservation groups.
The memo, prepared for the Northern Plains Resource Council, says a plant the size being promoted by the governor would create thousands of tons per year of sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, solid waste and other pollutants - as well as use huge amounts of water.
To even get this plant in operation means we need to get a large coal mine in operation to get to the coal the Governor wants to use.
I've always been leery of claims that a major manufacturing plant "doesn't pollute." Any major manufacturing plant pollutes and needs to be looked at closely. Being as this is in my back yard I am watching it very closely.
Permalink
jdhlax Posted 3:16 am
22 Nov 2005
Jeff Hoffman
Permalink
bluerock Posted 5:34 am
22 Nov 2005
It's pie-in-the-sky (http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005511200303).
NRDC does not support coal to liquids technology, it supports sequestering carbon in plants built to replace existing coal fired electric generating plants.
The technology is not proven, is years down the road, and is way too capital intensive, even if you don't count the unknown, but very high, costs of capturing and sequestering carbon.
There isn't enough water, or any other infrastructure, to support this industry in Eastern Montana.
Biofuels plants are far cheaper, would come on line far sooner, be far cleaner, and to boot would be a much more dispersed and stable source of jobs and economic development than synfuels plants turning coal into liquids.
Nobody bats 1,000.00, and that includes Governor Schweitzer.
Permalink