James Hansen has coauthored a new paper on oil and climate. He has posted a note explaining that:

The principal conclusion of this paper is that it is possible to keep atmospheric CO2 at a much lower limit than commonly assumed, provided that coal use is phased out except where the CO2 is captured and stored, and use of unconventional fossil fuels, if it occurs, is also accompanied by CO2 capture and storage.

Needless to say, liquid coal is a nonstarter. Here is the abstract:

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One final post on this week’s liquid coal hearing. Forbes wrote up the hearing and got my bluntest quote:

“Coal-to-liquid is just a dead end, from a climate perspective,” added Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress. “Liquid coal will not have a future in this country, no matter how much money Congress squanders on it.”

Well, I guess “liberal-leaning” is better than “liberal.”

Why is liquid coal a dead end? Because, as I explain in my testimony, even a relatively low price for carbon dioxide is fatal to liquid coal’s economics, as made clear in two recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration:

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