The State of Montana is taking on a catalytic role to bring together developers, industry representatives, and the federal government, while providing permitting facilitation and coal feedstock for technology development, financing, engineering, infrastructure, and product offtake. Montana intends to take advantage of its status as holder of the nation's greatest coal reserves to:
- Break America's addiction to foreign oil and move to energy independence
- Utilize coal gasification to produce clean-burning transportation fuels and low-emissions power
- Create a domestic energy production economy in America's heartland
- Advance C02 sequestration technology
- Produce sulfur-free and particulate-free liquid fuels while reducing environmental contaminants
MIT's The Future of Coal can be found here .
"We believe that coal use will increase under any foreseeable scenario because it is cheap and abundant. Coal can provide usable energy at a cost of between $1 and $2 per MMBtu compared to $6 to $12 per MMBtu for oil and natural gas. Moreover, coal resources are distributed in regions of the world other than the Persian Gulf, the unstable region that contains the largest reserves of oil and gas." -- The Future of Coal, MIT
"Carbon-free technologies, chiefly nuclear and renewable energy for electricity, will also play an important role in a carbon-constrained world, but absent a technological breakthrough that we do not foresee, coal, in significant quantities, will remain indespensable.
We conclude that CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) is the critical enabling technology that would reduce CO2 emissions significantly while also allowing coal to meet the world's pressing energy needs." -- The Future of Coal, MIT
