Seeking Clean Fuel for a Nation, and a Rebirth for Small-Town Montana (NY Times) – SYNFUEL: Economic panacea or pie in the sky for Montana?

If the vast, empty plain of eastern Montana is the Saudi Arabia of coal, then Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a prairie populist with a bolo tie and an advanced degree in soil science, may be its Lawrence.

Rarely a day goes by that he does not lash out against the "sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks" who control the world oil supply or the people he calls their political handmaidens, "the best Congress that Big Oil can buy."

Governor Schweitzer, a Democrat, has a two-fisted idea for energy independence that he carries around with him. In one fist is a shank of Montana coal, black and hard. In the other fist is a vial of nearly odorless clear liquid – a synthetic fuel that came from the coal and could run cars, jets and trucks or heat homes without contributing to global warming or setting off a major fight with environmental groups, he said.

"Smell that," Mr. Schweitzer said, thrusting his vial of fuel under the noses of interested observers here in the capital, where he works in jeans with a border collie underfoot. "You hardly smell anything. This is a clean fuel, converted from coal by a chemical process. We can produce enough of this in Montana to power every American car for decades."

By TIMOTHY EGAN

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/national/21coal.html

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Gov. Brian Schweitzer has a habit of cornering the unwary and, like a department store clerk accosting women at the perfume counter, waving two vials under their noses and commanding them to inhale.

One of the vials contains an amber liquid with a familiar, pungent smell: diesel fuel.

The other is clear and nearly odorless. It’s synfuel, made of coal, and these days it’s Schweitzer’s scent of choice.

Schweitzer’s relentless salesmanship with an eye toward locating a coal-into-fuel plant in Montana is drawing national attention.

Last last month’s energy conference in Bozeman gathered 700 government, industry and environmental representatives from around the country, and an op-ed piece the governor penned ran in the New York Times.

"America has a substance abuse problem," Schweitzer wrote, "and Montana may have a cure."

By GWEN FLORIO
Tribune Capitol Bureau

Full Story: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051120/NEWS01/511200303/1002