Another evil

There stands a huge chemical plant in the suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa, billowing out steams and flames from its gigantic chimneys. Black material is carried into the plant which in turn is churning out liquid. The liquid is gasoline. This is the scene I saw on TV yesterday. I did not know they are converting coal to gasoline
The coal conversion process used to be economically unviable when compared with petroleum. But recent hike in oil price push it up to a potential stardom as if overnight. It can now compete with oil-refined gas. It is even more promising if we look at future. Coal resource is far bigger than oil. The coal reserve in USA alone is abundant enough to cover the gas equivalent to 250 years of its gas consumption in the country when it is all converted. The problem to make the matter worse is the conversion process is as twice CO2 expensive as oil-refinery process.
I was wrong. Rising oil price is not going to discourage people from using the CO2-strewing liquid, gasoline. Capitalism always goes like this. When an evil dies another evil takes it over, as long as we leave everything to the principle of desire.