Energy Alternatives

Bloomberg has a nice story on alternative energy programs that are being put in place.

http://tinyurl.com/efubw

Some excerpts...

Rising demand for low-polluting fuels will aid gas-to-liquids, or GTL, projects, such as one built in Qatar by a Sasol Ltd.-Chevron Corp. joint venture that starts next month.

Other alternatives using similar technology include coal, or CTL, projects, favored by the U.S. and China, which have vast coal reserves.

Chinese companies including Shenhua Group Corp. and U.S. companies including DRKW Energy LLC are planning to build coal-to- liquid or CTL plants to take advantage of their large national coal reserves. DRKW is planning a $1.4 billion project in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, with Arch Coal Inc., Rentech Inc. and General Electric Co.

So will these energies of the future compete with ethanol from corn and oil sands? I hope so, because those last two are energy-inefficient boondoggles (though investors can still get rich on them).

Then again, I don't know enough about coal-to-liquids and gas-to-liquids. What do they do with all the C02 that must be created in the coal-to-liquids process? Well, I'll look into it.

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