Originally Posted by faithful_servant

Because the GW alarmists ahve made coal an unviable alternative. Our coal reserves hold enough energy to power this country for a loooong time. We are the world leader in coal reserves, but not in coal production/usage (China's got that locked down). But the GW alarmists and lieing eco-nuts have demonized coal to where no one will touch the idea of expanding it's use. The bottom line is that if we went whole hog on using coal, we'd be telling the Arabs what we'll pay for oil instead of the other way around. Putting our coal reserves to full use would put us in a position of complete dominance in the world energy picture. With coal, we fuel the production of our electricity with our own energy reserves instead of foreign sources. That leaves the petro industry with basically gasoline and diesel as products.