West Virginia Headline News and Talk Radio
We had earlier written you of the planned Mingo County, WV, coal-to-liquid conversion facility. This story presents an update of the project.
Some excerpts, with highlights and parenthetical comments:
"A proposed $3 billion Mingo County coal-to-liquid fuel plant is now in the air quality part of the permitting process."
"The goal is to put the plant, which could eventually use up to three million tons of locally mined coal to make more than 6.5 million barrels of gasoline every year, into operation by 2013."
(Note that this estimate of yield indicates technology improvements have been made on coal conversion technologies about which we've earlier reported - suggesting in those reports that yields would likely improve as the CTL technology developed and advanced. - JtM)
"As for the carbon that's produced in the process, company officials say they're willing to look at carbon sequestration but they would rather Congress open up pipelines to allow the carbon to be moved from West Virginia to the Gulf Coast where it could be injected into existing oil fields to help with oil production."
(We would rather see some more "advanced" thinking applied to CO2 - it could be converted into more liquid fuel, as we've documented. But, if they do plan to just pump it underground, they are at least trying to accomplish something constructive - enhanced oil recovery - by doing so. - JtM)
"Herholdt (State Division of Energy Director Jeff Herholdt) says the Mingo County project would be leading the way in coal-to-liquids. But, he says, others need to follow suit."
""We are challenged to meet the liquid fuel needs of the future and coal-to-liquids plants certainly will represent one of our best opportunities to continue our dependence on liquid fuels," Herholdt tells MetroNews."
