Coal-fired everything

(Posted by John.)

Ugh. First "clean coal", then coal-to-liquids, now it looks like we're going back to coal-derived gas for our pipelines. Is it just me, or does this sound like we're looking more and more like Victorian England?

I refuse to wear a top hat.

Because domestic natural gas has passed peak production rates, the US has the world's largest coal reserves and because natural gas is the fuel of choice for many uses; given a low cost source of gas, the company believes there is a huge potential market for their gas.

Basically, this is a "just add water" process where the coal's carbon is added to waters hydrogen to make CH4, or methane. It's clean enough, considering. But it's still fossil carbon, and it still belongs where we found it - underground.