Sin Fuels on CBS

Daily Kos and The Oil Drum remind us that Montana governor Brian Schweitzer will appear on 60 Minutes tonight. I caught a bit of the guv on Al Franken (check AAR archives) and on CSPAN Washington Journal on repeats from Friday.

My sin fuel title comes from this piece in Time.

The coal can look and burn like regular coal. The IRS rule for transforming coal into synfuel--and getting the tax credit--requires only that the substance be chemically altered in some way. The alchemy that satisfies the IRS is a simple process: some plants spray newly mined coal with diesel fuel, pine-tar resin, limestone, acid or other substances--a practice that industry critics call "spray and pray." Other operators mix coal-mining waste with chemicals, coat it with latex and blend it with untreated coal to form briquettes.

I remain deeply suspicious of stuff that will expand our gargantuan greenhouse gas generation capability.

Update: After digesting the 60 Minutes broadcast, I decided that the worst piece of misinformation from Ms. Stahl came from her implication that mined Appalachian coal comes solely from underground shafts. Afraid not, as mountaintop strip mining has become the norm out east, as it will in Montana.