It's just a single line in this Business Week article on Peabody Energy Corp but it is key to understanding our likely near-mid term energy future. "Boyce also hopes to build cutting-edge plants to turn coal into a liquid and a gas—a move that has the potential to open up big new markets." Liquid coal is another way of saying Fischer-Tropsch conversion and that means that petroleum's major potential competition, coal is taking a major leap forward into reality.
Tanking up with domestic coal instead of imported oil is an attractive proposition, one that's going to set major political impulses (Domestic energy! Clean energy!) against each other. Bring on the popcorn and three cheers for Peabody Energy.