Building coal to liquids plants will boost greenhouse gas emissions

A U.S. Senate panel weighed plans on Thursday to turn plentiful U.S. coal supplies into transport fuels to reduce U.S. dependence on crude oil imports, which meet about 60 percent of daily needs, policymakers are eyeing America's 250-year supply of coal as a way to fill U.S. gas tanks.

Countries like South Africa already use a process commercialized by Germany in World War Two to turn coal into fuel that can be used in airplanes as well as cars and trucks. China is also eyeing ways to boost its coal-conversion capacity.

The U.S. coal to liquids industry is still in its infancy, but Democrats and Republicans from dominant coal states like Illinois and Kentucky want to offer incentives to build new plants (which can cost billions of dollars).

I think that building coal to liquids plants will boost greenhouse gas emissions. In my opinion that increased coal use runs counter to a push in the United States and abroad to reduce heat trapping carbon dioxide emissions, linked to rising earth temperatures. Coal burning is already responsible for about a third of carbon dioxide emissions from the United States, the globe's biggest greenhouse gas emitter.