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Attacks are not new energy crisis
County gasification plant will help
Pottsville Republican & Evening Herald
Friday, September 21, 2001
The savage terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 will affect America in thousands of ways.
Energy, as is inevitable in any discussion of Middle Eastern affairs, is one.
Recently, the Washington Times editorialized on the need to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The current crisis, it noted, shows more than ever the need for this nation to have its own supply of energy free from the extremism and violence so prevalent in that region.
Drilling for oil in that refuge is a complicated issue. But the points raised in its favor, and none of the perceived negatives, apply to an energy project mush closer to home: John W. Rich Jr.'s proposed gasification/liquefaction plant near Gilberton in northern Schuylkill County.
The plant will take advantage of the county's great traditional resource - anthracite - and apply it to the 21st century.
In it, a carbon-water slurry mix is converted to a gas and put through more processes to make petroleum products. (As added benefits, sulfur products, concrete, mortar and plaster are made at various stages.)
Like the wildlife refuge, Schuylkill County has tons of energy in the ground in the form of Anthracite.
Like the refuge, the plant can lead to hundreds of jobs here and, if copied, thousands of jobs in other coal-producing areas.
Like the refuge, the anthracite is beyond the clutches of extremists and OPEC moguls.
Simply put, there is no downside.
The legislation authorizing the necessary tax credits for development of the plant is in the energy bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, having been pushed by U.S. Rep. T. Timothy Holden, D-6. Right now, it is in the Senate, where U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, both R-Pa., are behind it.
Of, course, the Senate's most immediate priority has to be to help win the war against terrorism. That will occupy the front burner for a considerable time.
However, the long-term solution to such woes include freeing the United States from dependence on Middle Eastern energy. To that end, once the immediate crisis is past, the Senate should speedily consider and adopt the necessary legislation to enable the plant to be built, the county to gain jobs and the country to become freer of Arab oil.
Or we can worry about another oil embargo, another war and another energy crisis. The choice is obvious.