Kos Talks Up Schweitzer's Coal Plans

This is long, but worth a read.

To summarize, Schweitzer, the Governor of Montana, has been pretty into the idea of using coal as a possible way of reducing dependence on foreign oil. Basically, with the price of oil so high, it has now become feasible to utilize coal and convert it into diesel or gasoline. In turn, the possible supply coming just from Montana could keep us with enough fuel for 40 years.

Kos added this:

The fuel that comes out of the Fischer-Tropsch method (also used by South Africa during their embargo years) burns cleaner than current fuels, stripping out sulfur, arsenic, and other nasty byproducts. And if Montana alone can deliver 40 years worth of the nation's energy needs, imagine how much more we'd have when you throw Wyoming, Illinois, Ohio, and West Virginia coal into the mix. More than enough fuel to get us inexpensively into the hydrogen economy.

The geopolitical ramifications are also huge -- no need for wars in the Middle East or saber-rattling in Venezuela. The impetus for foolish wars would wane. And cheaper gas (I don't buy $1/gallon, but even twice that would be a boon) would provide huge benefits to the economy.

Not a modest vision for a small state governor.

Compare to Republican governors getting indicted and convicted and investigated all around the country.

This idea will certainly be hotly debated for some time, as the ramifications of burning coal still aren't nearly as clean as people would like. Nonetheless, with oil approaching $70, people are finally getting a little panicky - which should lead to some innovation, or at least some acceptance of other technologies.

Even conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan has lately been a bit displeased with oil price AND has started a bit of a revolt against the SUV. He quotes a pro-Kerry piece from Gregg Easterbrook about shying away from SUVs and towards hybrids, leading to incredible results:

A simple one-third increase in the mileage of new vehicles would have a remarkably beneficial impact on the United States-Persian Gulf relationship, and quickly.
Here's the math. About 17 million new cars and "light trucks" (SUVs, pickups, and minivans) are sold in the United States each year and driven, on average, about 12,000 miles annually. If the fuel efficiency of 17 million vehicles driven 12,000 miles annually rose by one-third, from a real-world 17 MPG to a real-world 23 MPG, that would save about 200 gallons of gasoline annually per vehicle, or about 3.4 billion gallons of gasoline. Since a barrel of petroleum yields 20 gallons of gasoline, about 170 million barrels of oil would be saved.
Perhaps you think, Aha! With U.S. petroleum demand at 20 million barrels daily, this MPG initiative has saved just about one week's worth of oil. Yes--in the first year, the MPG increase would have little effect, in much the same way that, in their first year, few investments yield much return. But remember the miracle of compounding! In the second year, with two model-years' worth of vehicles at the higher MPG, 340 million barrels of oil are saved. The next year, the savings is 510 million barrels, the next year 680 million, and so on. In just the fifth year of this initiative, we would need to purchase about 850 million fewer barrels of petroleum--approximately the amount the United States imports each year from the Persian Gulf states.

It is obvious that change is on the horizon, but how drastic will the change be? I don't expect much from the current administration, especially after admitting that the recently passed Energy Bill would do nothing to lower the price of gas, but there is still great possibilities at the state level. This has been one of the few areas where Arnold has actually been doing a decent job and a number of other states, like Montana, are willing to make changes when DC won't. Thank God for Federalism.