Everything you need to know about liquid coal

In a nutshell

Posted by David Roberts at 1:16 PM on 20 Aug 2007

Read more about: business | energy | coal | coal-to-liquid fuel

Business types discuss various subjects at industry confabs: best practices, new marketing strategies, changes in the regulatory environment, etc. They discuss how better to compete.

When representatives of the coal-to-liquids industry get together, they talk about something else:

One theme dominated discussion last week at an industry-sponsored conference on turning coal into gasoline and diesel fuel: finding political support for government incentives.

For story: Everything you need to know about liquid coal
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Industry confabs

Coal execs may not have a monopoly on such behavior.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
-- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Victual Reality

by Tom Philpott at 1:29 PM on 20 Aug 2007

The road to Hell is paved in Wall Street

"Supporters at the Coal-To-Liquids Coalition conference in Daniels say Wall Street won't finance plants that can cost up to $8 billion without some guarantee of a decent return."

by sunflower at 1:57 PM on 20 Aug 2007

No surprise

David - as I've said to you before, it is not coincidental that the only countries that have ever built coal-to-liquids plants are those that were under international energy embargoes (WWII Germany and 1980s South Africa). I am quite comfortable stipulating that no one in this country will every built a CTL plant unless we are placed under energy embargo or we dramatically overhaul every idea we ever had about market discipline. (Sunflower: I don't imply that all markets are perfect, but wouldn't slam Wall St. quite so hard. It is, after all, paved with traders who truly believe in the long-term intelligence of markets, in spite of their short term wackiness.)

Deep down, the coal industry either knows this - in which case they are fighting a losing effort (perhaps to save themselves from the fact that the mainstay of their market doesn't make economic sense anymore). Or else they haven't quite figured it out yet, in which case I say let's give them a CTL bone to shut them up for a while for the plant that markets still won't build. Markets do chase profits, but that doesn't make them stupid. We could throw a $50MM subsidy at CTL that wouldn't make a lick of difference to any plant - and wouldn't encourage investors to come to the party - but might shut them up for a while on other issues.

But maybe that's why Wall St. is downgrading) coal stocks...

by Sean Casten at 3:16 PM on 20 Aug 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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