While reasonable people can debate how much and for how long we can increase both guns and butter, it is clear that adding massive and expensive oil imports to the equation results in a path that is not sustainable. As many have written, the country's energy challenge is one for which there is not a single ''magic bullet'' solution -- that all viable contributions are needed. In that context, it is particularly puzzling and frustrating that an aggressive national policy has not emerged to do what it takes to get the beginnings of a domestic Coal-To-Liquids (CTL) industry off the ground. This is an industry that can apply our country's most abundant energy resource to producing a product that will directly reduce oil imports, create real industrial jobs in the process -- technical, business, labor and management -- and enable the export dollars saved to have a significant multiplier impact in the United States.
Good reasons abound for coal-to-liquid fuels
