By Richard Walrath

 

There’s a major push on in Congress to pass coal-to-liquids legislation on the grounds that it furthers the U.S.’s energy independence, despite the fact that it makes our climate crisis worse.  This is all pretty up-stream stuff, but the idea is to make the "liquid coal"  less toxic than would be the case if the coal were burned as a solid.  The coal is liquefied by crushing it, making it easier to remove the impurities such as ash.
 
The product is a long way off in the future.  I’d rather work on getting hydrogen out of water.  There’s an unlimited supply of that on each side of the country.  After you remove the hydrogen, you’re left with oxygen, which doesn’t sound too bad as a waste product.  In the meantime, it looks like we’re all going to starve to death because they’re going to use up all the corn making fuel for all the cars that people drive around.