Ricky Scrotum 'op-eds for donors'

You gotta say this much about Rick Santorum -- he doesn't stop working on behalf of his big campaign donors and their half-baked get-rich schemes, even more than a year after the voters of Pennsylvania unceremoniously voted the Virginian out of office. Since he can't work the backrooms of the Senate anymore, yesterday he used the one platform he's got: his new op-ed column in the Inquirer. In typical fashion, he never disclosed that the plan he advocated for in print was that of his one-time large campaign donor -- that's why the Janitorum is here, to clean up the mess.

Santorum's column starts out with some, pardon the expression, boilerplate about how horrible it is that America's poor people have to get free heating oil from Bush-hating Venezulan leader Hugo Chavez. (I'm not a big fan of the free-speech hating Chavez either -- although I wonder why companies like Exxon-Mobil, which just announced an annual profit of $40.6 billion, don't do as much to help the needy as the Venezualan blowhard.)

Indeed, Rick's alternative sounds worth considering.

He writes:

Pennsylvania coal already generates most of the electricity in this state. The industry is in the process of doing it more cleanly through clean-coal technologies, such as gasification of coal into methanol, a form of alcohol that can be burned in internal combustion engines directly or used to manufacture synthetic gasoline and chemicals. These technologies can lead to a whole host of new clean uses that can help us reduce oil imports.
Just two hours up the road from Philadelphia, the nation's first coal-to-gas-to-diesel facility may soon be developed in Schuylkill County; word was expected today on a U.S. Department of Energy loan of $100 million to help enable construction. This fuel, which is currently being used in another coal-rich country, South Africa, can be used to power jets, heat your home, and run diesel engines.

Indeed, Santorum even wants our cars to run on this stuff:

We need to mandate that all cars sold in the United States, starting with the 2010 model year, be "flex-fuel vehicles" - that is, they should be able to run on a blend that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline (the so-called E85 blend), or even a coal-derived methanol/gas mixture. This mandate would cost a fraction of the new fuel economy standard with the added benefit of saving barrels more oil.

All sounds good -- pulling stuff out of the ground right here in Pennsylvania and heating our homes and driving our cars while telling a South American whack-job ruler where to go. (Prediction: A lot of conservative readers will say that Santorum is only fighting for Pa. jobs -- the same conservatives who'd be calling this plant a boondoggle if it were in Kansas.) What could be the problem?

Well, Santorum mentioned South Africa but not another coal-rich country that's used the technology, China. Maybe that's because:

China plans several such facilities, although the Associated Press reported last summer that the Chinese government was considering abandoning the effort because of concerns over cost and energy efficiency.
Did you also notice Santorum used the word "clean" twice in the same paragraph to describe this technology. Apparently his definition of "clean" is different from mine, because:

According to an environmental impact study by the U.S. Department of Energy, Rich's plant would emit trace amounts of mercury, benzene, hydrochloric acid and arsenic, among other pollutants, though the study says "no direct threat to human health" is expected.

Emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, would be high. From production to transport to use of the gas, liquid coal could result in 80 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than from conventional petroleum-derived fuels, according to the study. More on the story.