Using Coal To Neutralize National Security Threats

Over the weekend, I noticed a story about the U.S. military putting forward a plan to wean itself from foreign fuel by turning to coal.

The Air Force realizes that they could “help neutralize a national security threat by tapping into the country's abundant coal reserves.”

It makes sense, of course, to have the U.S. military use a domestically abundant resource rather than relying on politically volatile regions for the fuel to power our own fleet.

I don’t talk much about transportation fuels, but with high gasoline prices on everyone’s mind, it’s worth joining the discussion about whether the future of automobiles is electric cars or vehicles that run on hydrogen.

If the nation decides to move to electric cars, that will mean a need for increased investment in more clean coal plants. After all, half of our electricity comes from coal — and we’ll need coal even more it if we are plugging in our cars to the electricity grid (and any residual increase in emissions from the increased production of electricity would be more than offset by the emissions reductions in the transportation sector).

As hydrogen vehicles also catch on, coal can provide a clean solution there too. Using advanced technologies, we will be able to use coal to produce electricity with hydrogen being a beneficial byproduct.

As I’ve said many times, we need to change our way of thinking if we want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Knowing that technology will allow us to use coal to produce electricity and produce hydrogen for things like hydrogen fuel cells is more relevant now than ever.