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Not so clean energy
equitygroups.com — technology involves super heating coal in an oxygen starved environment so it doesn ’t actually burn. The coal gives off a gas and then a catalyst is introduced that causes the gas turn into a form of diesel fuel. It’s not new–the Nazis developed it in WWII to fuel their tanks when they couldn’t get their hands on oil. The problem is unless
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- gbudavid, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2The USAF is Putting a lot of money into this technology
- elasticsoul, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3There just is no such thing as "clean" coal. I suppose the air force needs to power their jets with something; there is a local company (International Composting Corporation) that claims to be able to produce biofuels from organic household scraps, including a fuel suitable for aircraft. That would be carbon neutral, and we could leave the damn coal in the ground, where it belongs.
- aki009, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1The USAF has little choice in the matter. They are a major consumer of petroleum products, and having a domestic supply that's independent of the ups&downs of the international markets is militarily important.
Coal, by the way, can be just as "clean" as other fossil fuels, assuming that it's burned in a properly controlled environment. For example, a modern coal power plant is not the ugly environmental disaster that its predecessors were. It's also a lot better than ethanol or some of the other "bio" fuels, that require a significant energy expenditure, and thus only a minor overall reduction in non-renewable energy use, yet come at a cost of significantly higher food prices.
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