Linda Cook

Linda Cook is the Executive Director of Gas and Power for Shell.

In July 2008 Cook told the Australian Financial Review that while the company had proven the coal-to-liquids technology works, the economic viability of such projects is not guaranteed. "What's not proven is more on the commercial side and whether you can afford to do those two technologies back to back and have it economically attractive," she said.

"You have to build a coal gasification plant and a gas-to-liquids plant, so [it's] very capital intensive. It would work economically in a place where you have low construction costs, where you are relatively close to market, and where you have a lot of low-cost coal reserves. So you can see maybe Australia has some of those ingredients ... On top of being capital intensive, it is also Co2 intensive and I think in todays environment one has to figure into the development of a coal-to-liquids project a means to offset the Co2 emissions associated with it," she said.


 * Member, China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Coal-to-Liquids Coalition
 * Coal-to-Liquids in Australia