Gov. Schweitzer is just chumming the waters for coal investors, and starting to smell like a fish left too long in the sun.

Energy investors still remember the 1986 oil price collapse.  If US political leadership pulled for efficiency, like car pools, then the savings would be millions of barrels of oil per day and the world oil price would collapse.  

Political leadership that push favorite local energy industries do not appear honest nor low risk.  Investor beware.  

Honest political leadership will reduce the price of energy.  Expansion of supply will become a negative investment when market demand shrinks from conservation, efficiency, price elasticity, and new energy technology.

Solar energy is cheaper than dirty coal, and much cheaper than clean coal.

why aren't the nations in a race to do it now?

http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/

Doesn't it seem a little impracticle to have all of our power generation located in the desert?

What about the workers at the plant? What about the fact that there is no energy demand out there?

Or did I misunderstand the quote. It was a little jargony.

Diana

There are oppurtunities to build some, cleary not hundreds, gasification plants and sequester for enhanced oil recovery.  Granted these oppurtunties are limited to oil fields but generally the coal has to be shipped and it make more sense then to ship the coal and use the CO2 locally.

Consider TU recent annoucement to build 8 coal plants in Texas.  Sound like a great place for enhanced oil recovery.

I am sure Texas rate payers would be happy, in the end, to pay the increased cost of coal gasification to help thir local oil production if not also to reduce CO2, which I am sure a significant number would also support.  But getting any rate increase through is no small feat.  Thing is would the Texas Commission rather see conventional coal with the most environmental impact, no support for oil production and least rate impact or ICCG with CO2 Capture with less environmental impact, CO2 for enhanced oil production, but higher rate impact.  Often with regulatory bodies it is the rate impact that rules.

on the front page of the Business pages of The New York Times last week, 7/5.  It included a map of the coal reserves in the US and it was frightening how vast they are.  I have read that sequestration is not very secure; gas can escape and kill people, in fact has done so.

Couldn't sequestration in ocean depths mess with life down in the deep by changing the CO2 levels?

Diana

Use of carbon dioxide to enhance oil recovery is not sequestration! The idea with sequestration is to find a place to put the stuff where it will stay. In enhanced recovery much of the CO2 dissolves in and comes up with the recovered oil. It can be recaptured and used again, but the need for continuous supply suggests that it is not.

Howard Wilshire