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This news story originally provided by
The Charleston Gazette
Gov. Joe Manchin was elected chairman Monday of the
Southern States Energy Board, a regional group that
represents some of the country’s biggest oil-, gas- and
coal-producing states.
On Monday, the group released a 211-page report calling
for a host of tax breaks, government-insurance programs and
other incentives to help coal replace foreign oil supplies.
Manchin took up the theme of “energy independence” in
accepting the new position.
“Our states, our region and our country are at an energy
crossroads. We must chart a new course to supply more of our
own energy resources to be more energy-independent,” he
said.
The SSEB is a nonprofit organization that conducts
research and develops energy policy for 16 states and two
territories: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, the
Virgin Islands, Virginia and West Virginia.
The group’s “American Energy Security Study” calls for a
national plan to convert coal into liquid fuel. That
technology has existed for decades but has not been widely
used because of its cost.
With rising gas prices and volatility in the Middle East,
liquid fuel from coal makes sense now, according to the
report.
In particular, federal and state taxpayers should provide
incentives to private investors to build plants that turn
coal into fuel, it says.
Those incentives could include tax credits, federal loan
guarantees, and a government-sponsored insurance program for
private investors in alternative fuel plants.
Congress should provide $500 million for the U.S.
Department of Defense’s alternative-fuels program, the
report says.
Also, state taxpayers should provide grants and loans to
match private investments early on because “the highest risk
in any project is in early stage development,” the report
says.
But money is not all. Regulators should make it easier
for companies to receive permits for environmental and
safety issues, it says.
“Permitting processes will need to be standardized to the
extent possible and streamlined to the maximum, while
simultaneously allowing adequate public scrutiny and input,”
it says.
All this can be done without new environmental
regulations, the report says. Mountaintop-removal mining and
other such “indirect environmental considerations” of coal
mining “can be addressed using mitigation measures already
in place.”
For example, hardwood forests could grow on former mine
sites if coal operators changed current practices, the
report says. Virginia Tech research shows how mining
companies could save topsoil and change mining practices so
they can return barren scrubland back into forest.
The report says all this should happen voluntarily. “We
encourage mining regulatory authorities and mining companies
to advance remining and reforestation programs,” it says.
Coal companies don’t reforest much of their land because
it costs more and takes more time, said Margaret Janes,
senior policy analyst for the Appalachian Center for the
Economy and the Environment in Lewisburg.
“They won’t reforest the land until state and federal
regulators require them to do it,” she said. “If you go up
on almost any reclaimed mine site today, all you’ll see is a
barren scrubland.”
Janes questioned claims that such technology would result
in lower carbon dioxide levels or less pollution in general.
“Clean coal is a total myth. Coal is a dirty, nasty fuel.
It should be thought of only as a transition fuel until we
conserve energy and develop true alternative fuels like wind
and solar energy.”
Several states are competing for new alternative-fuel
plants. In October, Manchin launched an initiative to build
a “coal conversion” plant in West Virginia.
This new type of plant could turn coal into several
products, including diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas,
chemicals and hydrogen, he said.
West Virginia’s facility would be a “polygen” plant,
flexible enough to produce different products at different
times, he said.
Manchin and state lawmakers resurrected the Public Energy
Authority to encourage such projects. Authority members are
assessing the market, looking at the available technology
and talking with potential investors, said Pat Esposito,
Manchin’s energy adviser.
“Our current thought is, with the ongoing increase in
crude oil and gasoline prices, transportation fuels provide
the best opportunities,” Esposito said.
State officials are not planning any special incentives
to lure the industry here, Esposito said.
“Most of those incentives will have to come from the
federal level,” he said.
On the Web:
www.americanenergysecurity.org
To contact staff writer Scott Finn, use e-mail or call
357-4323.
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