Panel chairman Jim Gibbons said Congress was serious about supporting efforts to encourage new alternative fuel sources to be available as soon as possible.

The cost of imported oil was a major focus during the question and answer session following the first panel's presentations, with questions surrounding the projected cost of alternative fuel derived from America's coal.

National Defense Council Foundation president Milt Copulos presented information as to the true cost of a gallon of gas and said the rising costs were creating an enormous drain on America's economy.

He said producing synthetic fuel from coal was the answer to the huge economic problem and referred to America as the “Saudi Arabia of coal”.

Silverado Green Fuel CEO Garry Anselmo said his company had developed an innovative coal-to-liquids technology, with its Low-Rank Coal-Water Fuel process being the only one to use high-moisture content, low-rank coal.

Anselmo said that roughly half of the coal reserves in the United States were relatively inexpensive sub-bituminous or lignite coal.

“The other companies represented on the panel use a technology in which bituminous coal is the feedstock used to produce synthesis gas,” he said.

“This treatment is an advanced technology that features a process of moderate temperature and pressure and non-evaporative drying that irreversibly removes much of the moisture from low-rank coal,” he said.

Anselmo said LRCWFuel was a non-hazardous, easily transportable liquid fuel and the price of a barrel of oil equivalent of LRCWFuel would be in the range of $US10-15 depending on the source of the coal.

“We are talking about a huge difference, between $10 or $15 LRCWFuel as opposed to the current market price of $70 for a barrel of oil,” he said.

The chairman said LRCWFuel would serve as an ideal candidate in the process for downstream production into ultra-clean synthetic gasoline, jet and diesel fuels.

He said commercialisation of Silverado's hydrothermal treatment process would be an outstanding opportunity to make America energy self-sufficient, especially since half of America's coal reserves were considered to be "low-rank".

Anselmo said Silverado Green Fuel was in the final preparation stage to signing the memorandum of understanding for its commercial demonstration and research facility.

“I believe we will be able to make a joint announcement in the very near future regarding the construction of America's first low-rank coal-water fuel production facility,” he said.