LOS ANGELES, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Coal and diesel fuel currently don't enjoy a pristine reputation for being environmentally friendly, but technological advances could eliminate their sooty image and keep them in the energy mix within the United States.
The Bush administration said Tuesday it received an encouraging response to its call for ideas to reduce the harmful emissions produced by burning coal while a consultant's report predicted that advances in diesel technology could be the breakthrough needed to slash gasoline consumption.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called the 36 proposals received in the first round of the White House's Clean Coal Power Initiative a "striking example" of the power industry's willingness to invest in innovations that will cut harmful emissions.
"The number and scope of the proposals tell us that the private sector has a wealth of 21st Century ideas to meet the president's energy and environmental goals," Abraham said.
The Clean Coal Initiative is part of President Bush's Clear Skies plan and is aimed at slashing emissions of sulfur, nitrogen and mercury by 70 percent and is also figuring in to cut greenhouse gases.
The stakes are high -- both for the energy industry and for consumers. Coal generates around half of the electricity used in the United States and U.S. reserves are healthy and plentiful, but there is growing concern over global warming and the insidious health effects of mercury.
By coincidence, the city of Boulder, Colo., along with the politically active environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit Tuesday in a San Francisco federal court alleging that the government's Import Export Bank and Overseas Private Investment Corp. provided financial support for overseas energy projects without assessing their potential harm to the global environment.
"All of the work that the city of Boulder does to maintain the quality of life for our residents will be negatively impacted by the detrimental effects of climate change," Mayor Will Toor said in a statement. "We believe that this lawsuit is one way force the federal government to start paying attention to this critical issue."
The administration, however, is banking that the development of technology will reduce unwanted emissions to levels that make coal friendlier to the environment. Of the 36 proposals submitted in the first round, half involved cleaning coal exhaust directly or turning the black rock into a gas that burns cleaner.
"Today's power plant operators will confront a host of environmental challenges that didn't exist 10 years ago," predicted Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Mike Smith, who will oversee the program. "Fortunately, clean coal research has not stood still, and now we are ready to move a new generation of advanced processes into testing."
The other major component of global warming and other forms of air pollution is the burning of oil for transportation.
The push for increased use of ethanol in gasoline has major political backing from environmentalists and from the agriculture lobby, which, according to a new Agriculture Department study, stands to see another $700 million pumped into the nation's farm economy under the renewable fuel standards (RFS) proposed by the Senate.
"This study proves how important the RFS is and why it is so important that it is included in the final energy bill," said Sen. Tom Harkin, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. "In Iowa, our corn and soybeans are the oil fields of the future and if President Bush makes the RFS a priority in the energy bill, Iowans will reap the rewards."
Meanwhile, 1,700 miles to the west of Iowa in San Diego, the focus was on increased use of diesel as a means of cutting gasoline emissions.
A report released Tuesday from a diesel technology conference sponsored by the Energy Department predicted that the state of California alone would save 141 million gallons of gasoline annually if there was a sharp increase in the number of vehicles on the road that are fitted with clean-diesel equipment.
"These vehicles are on the roads in Europe right now," said Richard McCann, a partner in the economics research firm M. Cubed. "They are not years away or in a limited, prototype stage."
The report, which was commissioned by the Diesel Technology Forum for its meeting in San Diego, stated that diesel-powered cars are 35-50 percent more fuel-efficient than gasoline vehicles, but represent only 2 percent of the passenger vehicles sold in the United States compared to one-third of vehicle sales in Europe.
Diesel has a reputation for being a dirtier fuel than gasoline -- a premise seen every day by motorists when an 18-wheeler labors up a long incline. The Environmental Protection Agency has mandated lower sulfur content in diesel field by 2006. The improved performance of clean-diesel vehicles has apparently made an impression in Detroit.
The Detroit News said Tuesday that Rep. John Dingle, D-Mich., returned from a European fact-finding trip so impressed with the latest diesel models that he was considering proposing a bill in Congress that would offer U.S. refiners tax breaks if they converted to low-sulfur diesel production before the EPA deadline.
"We have to have some kind of catalyst to start this debate and break this logjam," Dingell told the newspaper. "If you can get 70 or 50 miles a gallon, it will eliminate a lot of warfare over Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and gas-guzzling and whatever. You can get your CAFE practically up and your fuel use down."
