Stop Dirty Fuels:
Liquid Coal
Stop Dirty Fuels : Tar Sands : Liquid Coal : Oil Shale
The coal industry is touting a plan to transform millions of tons of coal into diesel fuel and other liquid fuels using an expensive, inefficient process that releases large quantities of global warming pollution. Producing liquid coal fuel generates twice as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide as producing ordinary gasoline. Even if the CO2 released by liquid coal plants is captured, the emissions would still be higher than the emissions from today's crude oil system.
In addition to nearly doubling global warming pollution, relying on synthetic liquid coal fuel would increase the harmful effects of coal mining on communities and ecosystems from Appalachia to the Rocky Mountains. Stepping up coal production to generate liquid fuels would mean stepping up strip-mining and mountaintop removal, which can destroy wildife habitats, aquifers and open space. Coal mining also produces hazardous and toxic wastes that can contaminate groundwater.
More about Dirty Fuels from
NRDC's staff blog
- Deeply flawed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline bill approved by House Committee
- posted by Anthony Swift, 2/8/12
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a deeply flawed bill that would use Congressional authority ...
- It's all about the framing: How polls and the media misrepresent the Keystone XL [tar sands][oil] pipeline
- posted by Liz Barratt-Brown, 2/4/12
- First of all, you won’t find tar sands mentioned in any of the polling. And in most polls, ...
- Keystone XL pipeline: Good for Big Oil, bad for the economy
- posted by Laurie Johnson, 2/1/12
- [We’re] probably looking at…from Montana to Houston, I don’t know, [job ...
- Lois Lane--Environmental Superhero!
- posted by Janet Barwick, 1/25/12
- (left to right: Joanie Kresich, Frances Stewart, Margot Kidder, and actress Tantoo Cardinal) On a recent ...
- Red Flags! Keystone XL tar sands pipeline bill would force approval while neglecting to protect our rivers and farms
- posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, 1/25/12
- Yesterday, hundreds of “referees” gathered on Capitol Hill and blew the whistle on the proposed ...
