"Alternative to oil
The technology to convert coal into a liquid fuel has been used for decades. South African oil company Sasol (NYSE: SSL) is a world leader in the field, as it makes gasoline and diesel fuel from both natural gas and coal. The company is currently working on ventures in Qatar, Nigeria, and China for coal-to-liquids plants."
(All as we have earlier documented for you. - JtM)
"If the necessary political will is present in the U.S., the technology should ultimately become popular here as well, given our huge coal reserves. It will be a great competitive move if Sasol can partner with a large refiner like Valero (NYSE: VLO) -- which has experience on the oil front with difficult feedstock like heavy sour crude -- or even ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), which has a huge cash pile for potential investment."
(We'll note both ExxonMobil's own Methanol-to-Gasoline - MTG(r) - process, where the methanol can be derived from coal, and the need for "political will". - JtM)
"Talk of wind and solar energy is fine, but the way I see it, coal will continue as an important power source for a long while. And if new initiatives bear fruit, then coal could easily become an important source of alternative energy itself."
Though it might be hard to think of coal as an alternate energy source, the coal-to-liquid and the CO2-to-fuel-and-plastics recycling technologies we've documented, make it just that. Coal could well become the King of several energy realms.
And, we present this entry because it's not from a scientific journal, company news release, or government agency. It's from a popular stock-picking advisory, and other investment advisors will likely follow suit. If so, then concerns that have been expressed about where the money needed to build coal conversion facilities will come from will be answered. Perhaps Sasol, in terms of financial investment in new and revolutionary technology, could become the new Microsoft.