Because of my interest in energy, I follow news about Sasol, the South African company that makes liquid fuels out of coal. Sasol news is a good tracer of what’s going on in the coal-to-liquids field, which is important because of CTL’s role as an economic backstop to petroleum as vehicle fuel. Lots of important global energy and greenhouse gas implications associated with CTL.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that Sasol signed a big deal with Tata to build a CTL facility in India, which I tweeted, which drew this response:
Does this require invocation of Godwin’s Law, or is it just a really bad ad hominem argument?
I think it is a Godwin, since the coal liquidation plants that were used by Germany during the war were planned and built before the Nazi’s came to power. It’s like calling fans of the movie Metropolis Nazis. It is certainly not relevant to the thermodynamics, economics, or security aspects of the plant.
Or perhaps what we have here is Quirk’s Exception.
It’s another indication of Peak Oil