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HI all,<br>
<br>
The U.S. military is nearly always the developer of new industries. The
computer and Internet industries were started through large subsidized
investments in those technologies for military use.<br>
Now they appear to be attempting to do the same for an oil to liquefied
coal transition. Here's the article:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5639384.html">http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5639384.html</a><br>
<br>
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<div id="captiontemplate">The
Air Force hopes to build a coal-to-liquid-fuel plant at Malmstrom Air
Force Base in Montana.Coal's impact on the environment has others,
including members of Congress, questioning the idea.<br>
<br>
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<div id="credittemplate" style="text-align: left;" class="caption"><b>ROBIN
LOZNAK</b><b>:</b> THE (GREAT FALLS, MONT.) TRIBUNE
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<p> <span class="timestamp"><b>March 21, 2008, 11:12PM</b><br>
</span> <span class="storyheading3">Air Force turning to coal for
cleaner-burning fuel<br>
</span> <span class="storydeck3">Military hopes to prod Wall Street
into investments for oil alternative</span><br>
</p>
<p class="copyright"> <span class="author">By MATTHEW BROWN<br>
</span> Associated Press </p>
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<p>MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, MONT. — On a wind-swept air base near the
Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean
itself from foreign oil by turning to a new and unlikely source: coal.</p>
<p>The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central
Montana the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network
of facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning
synthetic fuel.</p>
<p>Air Force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national
security threat by tapping into the country's abundant coal reserves.
And by offering itself as a partner in the Malmstrom plant, the Air
Force hopes to prod Wall Street investors — nervous over coal's role in
climate change — to sink money into similar plants.</p>
<p>"We're going to be burning fossil fuels for a long time, and there's
three times as much coal in the ground as there are oil reserves," said
Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson. "Guess what? We're
going to burn coal."</p>
<p>Tempering that vision, analysts say, is the astronomical cost of
coal-to-liquids plants. Their high price tag, up to $5 billion apiece,
would be hard to justify if oil prices were to drop.</p>
<p>In addition, coal has drawn wide opposition on Capitol Hill, where
some leading lawmakers reject claims it can be transformed into a clean
fuel. Without emissions controls, experts say coal-to-liquids plants
could churn out double the greenhouse gases as oil.</p>
<p>"We don't want new sources of energy that are going to make the
greenhouse gas problem even worse," House Oversight Committee Chairman
Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said.</p>
<p>
</p>
<h3>Private development</h3>
The Air Force would not finance,
construct or operate the coal plant. Instead, it has offered private
developers a 700-acre site on the base and a promise that it would be a
ready customer as the government's largest fuel consumer.
<p>Bids on the project are due in May. Construction is expected to take
four years once the Air Force selects a developer.</p>
<p>Anderson said the Air Force plans to fuel half its North American
fleet with a synthetic-fuel blend by 2016. To do so, it would need 400
million gallons of coal-based fuel annually.</p>
<p>With the Air Force paving the way, Anderson said the private sector
would follow — from commercial air fleets to long-haul trucking
companies.</p>
<p>
</p>
<h3>Not much success</h3>
"Because of our size, we can move the
market along," he said. "Whether it's (coal-based) diesel that goes
into Wal-Mart trucks or jet fuel that goes into our fighters, all that
will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which is the endgame."
<p>Coal producers have been unsuccessful in prior efforts to cultivate
such a market. Climate change worries prompted Congress last year to
turn back an attempt to mandate the use of coal-based synthetic fuels.</p>
<p>The Air Force's involvement comes at a critical time for the
industry. Coal's biggest customers, electric utilities, have scrapped
at least four dozen proposed coal-fired power plants over rising costs
and the uncertainties of climate change.</p>
<p>That would change quickly if coal-to-liquids plants gained political
and economic traction under the Air Force's plan.</p>
<p>"This is a change agent for the entire industry," said John
Baardson, CEO of Baard Energy in Vancouver, Wash., awaiting permits on
a proposed $5 billion coal-based synthetic fuels plant in Ohio. "There
would be a number of plants that would be needed just to support (the
Air Force's) needs alone."</p>
<p>Only about 15 percent of the 25,000 barrels of synthetic fuel that
would be produced daily at the Malmstrom plant would be suitable for
jet fuel. The remainder would be lower-grade diesel for vehicles,
trains or trucks and naphtha, a material used in the chemical industry.</p>
<p>That means the Air Force would need at least seven plants to meet
its 2016 goal.</p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara</pre>
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