Air Force Wants To See Coal Fuel Take Off

Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. -On a wind swept base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to an unlikely energy source coal.

At its Malmstrom base in central Montana, the Air Force wants to build the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities to convert domestic coal into cleaner burning synthetic fuel.

Air force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national security threat by tapping into the country's abundant coal reserves. By offering itself as a partner in the Malmstrom plant, the Air Force hopes to prod Wall Street investors nervous over coal's role on climate change to sink mone into plants nationwide.

We're going to be burning fossil fuels for a long time, and there's three times as much coal in the ground as there are oil reserves," said Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson. " Guess what? We're going to burn coal."

Tempering that vision, analysts say, is the astronomical cost of coal-to-liquid plants. Their high price tag, up to $5 billion each, would be hard to justify if oil prices were to drop. In addition, coal has drawn wide opposition on Capitol Hill, where some leading lawmakers reject claims that it can be transformed into a clean fuel. Without controls on emissions, experts say, coal-to-liquid plants could churn out twice the amount of green house gases that oil does.

"We don't want new sources of energy that are going to make the green house gas problem even worse," said House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills).