China plans to drop coal-to-liquids

by: Carnacki

Thu Jun 14, 2007 at 03:49:43 AM EDT

CTL is too costly and wasteful; grain ethanol competes with people for grain

At a meeting on renewable energy on June 7, the State Council decided that China will halt coal liquefaction and grain ethanol projects currently in progress; under the principles of "not taking up arable land," "not using grain," and "not damaging the environment," China will continue to develop non-grain ethanol.

Update (By Clem Guttata):

This would be a huge setback for Liquid Coal advocates. One of their major talking points is pointing to China as evidence Liquid Coal is proven technology. (The unspoken part of their argument is feeding into US nationalist pride. After all, we have to compete with the Chinese, don't we?)

Now we learn an inconvenient truth. The Chinese have tried it out with their own massive investments. They've announced they are stopping all new investments--including a half-built billion-dollar plant--because Liquid Coal is just not economically and environmentally viable.

The problem with Liquid Coal has nothing to do with market pressures or lack of government support--those just aren't issues in China. The problem with Liquid Coal is it creates too many dirty byproducts and does not produce enough net energy.