You sound like one of these politicians who’s convinced he knows how to do things better than the free market. If turning coal into gas were “much cheaper” than drilling for it, that’s what we’d do. The reality is that the only reason coal is “cheap” is that the demand for coal is very much less than the demand for gas relative to the supply. If we got our gas from coal, our coal supply would be exhausted in just a few years. Back in the 50’s, there was a lot of talk about the fact that our coal supply was going to be exhausted in less than 50 years. Now they say that we have more than a 200 year supply of coal. The reason is simple. We don’t use much coal anymore. During the 50’s, we used it for just about everything. I’m content to let the markets decide these things. Free markets are what made this country great. And the free market is what decided that we should get our gas by drilling, not by converting coal to gas. Use our coal to do things that gas cannot do as efficiently.
I don’t know where you get your facts.
Back in the 70’s, the country made a major move towards coal, not away. There is currently tremendous government pressure to move away from coal based on stricter air quality controls and limitations on construction of new coal fired plants. Obama is trying to execute the industry outright with Carbon credits. Regardless, a large percentage of electricity is still produced by coal which was previously produced with petroleum.
Coal is the only fuel that we have an abundance of. We currently import both oil and NG.
The only thing that coal can do that gas cannot do efficiently is provide coke and coal tar.
I didn’t say that turning coal to gas is much cheaper than drilling for it. What I said is that NG is a better fuel than coal which is true. I said that NG is getting expensive enough that coal gasification is becoming attractive which is true. You said “Converting coal to methane is sort of like converting gold to lead.” which is just plain not true.
It is fair that you wouldn’t take my word for it, but do me a favor, look into the facts.