Last night on 60 Minutes, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer spoke about his state’s coal deposits and how he would like to dig them up and process them into diesel fuel to “wean the United States off foreign oil”.
No, I didn’t watch this. Hell, I was still sleeping when it was on.
I read about it at the dailyKos.
First off, I want to set the record straight: Coal IS NOT “Black Gold”. Coal is the “Black Diamond”, oil is “Black Gold”. Good Lord, who missed Beverly Hillbillies reruns?
OK. Now that that is straightened out, lets get into the issue. Oh wait, there is no issue. There is not enough coal in the continental United States to significantly supplement our need for oil to turn into diesel fuel. I’d love for them to try and do it though, but only if it will knock down the price of diesel, which it won’t because of the complicated refining process.
And I would also love for Montana to ‘strike it rich’ in the sense of creating tens of thousands of jobs mining the shallow deposit coal, but there is no way it will ever happen. The enviro-freaks would act up like Bush just personally put a match to Yellowstone if the eastern half of Montana were dug up to get to that coal, even though Schweitzer is a Democrat, and maybe because of that fact.
If you want proof of this, check out the comments over at Kos. One scroll wheel turn down and you’ll be past the Schweitzer lovers and into the “We must save every tumbleweed, no matter the cost” people.
It’s nearly a full evening of entertainment. Definitely more so than the 60 Minutes show would have been.