Denver Post Writes Puff Piece for Liquid Coal

Promoting liquefied coal requires a complete disinterest in solving climate change as a premise. That's why it’s especially distressing when an allegedly esteemed newspaper assumes that liquefied coal is good for the world, and never challenges it.

Here’s the Denver Post headline: Time may be ripe for coal-to-liquid. It gets worse.

The article details the uphill quest of a company called Renetech to build a coal-to-liquids plant. It oozes with sympathy for Renetech, deals only in half-truths and includes no balance. The Post writes:

The potential benefits are enticing: abundant coal supplies, reduced dependence on imported oil and the possibility of cleaning the carbon dioxide out of the fuel-making process.

Abundant coal supplies? US coal supplies will run dry in about 100 years, 200 according to the most optimistic scenarios.

Reduced dependence on imported oil? Unproven. Replacing even a fraction of gasoline with liquefied coal would require billions and billions in taxpayer subsidies and years to get off the ground, not to mention a possible overhaul of America’s fleet to accommodate the new fuel source.

Cleaning the carbon dioxide out of the fuel-making process? Making liquid fuel out of coal produces twice the amount of carbon emissions than its petroleum equivalent. From the NYT:

Coal-to-liquid fuels produce almost twice the volume of greenhouse gases as ordinary diesel. In addition to the carbon dioxide emitted while using the fuel, the production process creates almost a ton of carbon dioxide for every barrel of liquid fuel.

Here's more from the Post:

Renetech and other coal-to-liquid companies face challenges from environmental groups that are not convinced the process can economically remove carbon dioxide and sequester it.

Not convinced? Of course they're not. Carbon capture sequestration is the only way to make the liquefied coal process cleaner, and it remains a technological pipe dream, one whose time may never come. Take a look at today’s USA today for the latest: at least eight such plants have been nixed before they even got off the ground -- and not by environmentalists.

At least eight clean coal plants, more than a third of those on the drawing board, have been canceled, delayed or rejected by regulators this year. Developers cite soaring construction costs, technology hurdles and uncertainty about regulation of greenhouse gases.

Show us the goods Renetech and we’ll believe. In the meantime, excuse us for being skeptical of an industry that's greenwashing itself and spoon-feeding fiction to the Denver Post, along with at least one newspaper chain, whose reporters are eating it up.

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