The governor of Montana, a Democrat, was on the Glenn Beck show recently, where he said that interests in his state can make and sell oil from coal for under $30 a barrel. 'Course, he can't get investors until everyone is sure that the usual sources will not suddenly undercut that price.
That is what has been said about tar sands and shale oil. The tar sands in Alberta are bit by bit coming on line and will put a ceiling on the price of oil somewhere above the $30-40 range. Once Alberta's sand andUtah's shale are fully online, Arabia as a source for our oil will dwindle. It will not be this year or next but it is inevitible. The continuing increase in production from Alberta may well be having an effect on oil futures now.
There was a proposed coal gassification plant in northern Missouri back in the late 1970's (after the first oil price gasoline spike and the inflation that resulted.)
The plant was to use high sulphur coal which is abundant in the region and was being phased out of power plants. There was a huge lake included in the project to use for cooling the massive plant, as well as providing jobs and recreation for an otherwise poor region.
Between the EPA, and the Corp of Engineers, the project cost became so highly inflated that the project was killed.
Now that gasoline is about 3 times the cost that it was at that time, the economics would have worked out well for investors as well as the influx of jobs the plant would have created. Not to mention the jobs lost when the coal mines closed....the idea was scrapped.
Now there is once again some talk about similar projects. The same talk that 30 years ago brought Americans nothing to show for the warning shots fired at us by OPEC except what we face now from that inaction.
Remembering my history......the NAZI war machine was fueled by coal gas for a large part of WW2. But with territorial conquests the NAZI's had to take middle east oil fields to fuel their war machine.
A coal gasification initiative could fuel much of America.
But alas.....just more talk.