Northern Cheyenne want casino, Schweitzer wants power plant

The governor met with tribal leaders of the Northern Cheyenne today. The tribe told the Governor that they want to build a casino; but Schweitzer took the opportunity to expand on his support for alternative coal technologies, which he wants to concentrate in a power plant on the Northern Cheyenne reservation:

Schweitzer pitched his idea to develop a reservation plant capable of producing diesel, gasoline and other fuels from coal mined in the Otter Creek tracts that the state obtained from the federal government a few years ago.

He predicted such a plant could operate for 50 years, providing hundreds of high-paying jobs on the reservation for two generations and creating little pollution. Expensive and unsightly power lines would not be needed because the product would be shipped in underground pipelines, he said.

The processing has become an economically viable method of producing fuel because oil prices have climbed so high, Schweitzer said.

For my part, I'm utterly fascinated with this technology, which I'd never heard of before Schweitzer started talking about it. Any of our readers know anything about this?