This translates to a fuel that is visibly cleaner, and ultimately delivers substantial across-the-board reductions in harmful tailpipe emissions compared to conventional fuels.

Image courtesy of National Renewable Energy Labs

So just through the exceptional physical properties of the fuels produced through this process, we already achieve a very substantial reduction in overall vehicle emissions in every category expet for one: Carbon Dioxide.

This is another area where a BCTL process can truly excel.

There is a lot of incomplete information being spread around on the environemtnal performance of Fischer Tropsch fuels produced from coal. Many sources will tell you that "coal liquefaction doubles carbon emissions", or that "in the best case, theya re only about the same as conventional fuels, which doesnt address the thread of global warming". The reality is that both of these arguments are only telling part of the story. They are attacking the potential of coal as a fuel source, while conveninetly "neglecting to mention" that the exact same process technology, when combined with proper emissions controls and a slightly different feedstock mix, is actually the only process technology currently commercially available with the realistic technical capability of producing truly carbon-neutral transportation fuels.
Here is how we go about reducing (and eventually eliminating!) the carbon footprint of Fischer Tropsch fuels: 

Using coal as a primary feedstock fundamentally involves pulling a large amount of carbon out of the ground, and processing it into fuels. In the worst case, a good chunk of this carbon ends up in the fuels themselves, and the rest ends up being emitted into the atmosphere at the plant level as part of the conversion process. However, these emissions can be captured withint he plant before they are vented to atmosphere, compressed to a very high pressure, and injected underground and stored permenantly under an impermiable geologic caprock. So effectively, we have just gone from pulling very large ammounts of carbon out of the ground, and putting them in the air, to pulling as much as we are out of the ground with conventional fuels, and then putting mack the remainder from the process that we cannot convert into fuel.

If we were to just stop there, then the critics would have a point in arguing that maybe we should think carefully about whether it would be wise to build the next generation of transportation fuels infrastructure without addressing the looming problem of global warming, as we would be effectively just transitioning from one inherently depleteable carbon-based fuel source (oil) to another (coal). "out of the frying plan, and right back into the frying pan", so to speak.
Since we have already captured and returned to the ground via sequestration the majority of the carbon that did not end up contained in the fuels, and since we ARE talking about what is chemically very close to (albeit cleaner than) conventional jet fuel and diesel fuel here, which inherently release carbon when they are consumed, to reduce the carbon footprint further requires that we do something a little bit more creative.

We have to take the portion of our carbon feedstock that is going to be converted into fuels, and ultimately will be released when the fuels are burned, and instead of pulling that carbon out of the ground (coal), we need to pull that carbon from the air, which we can do by feeding the process partially with biomass (because plants are made largely of carbon, which they absorbed from the air). So when all is said and done, by capturing and sequestering the carbon from the process, and sourcing the carbon that ends up in fuels from biomass, we have the technical capability of producing truly lifecycle carbon neutral transportation fuels. To our knowledge, this process is the only process commercially available that can make that claim at this time.

The Process of Making Coal-Based Fuels Clean

To many people, “clean coal” may very justifiably seem like a contradiction in terms. The technical limits of more inexpensive conventional pulverized coal power generation technology have over many years given coal a rightfully earned reputation as a very dirty energy source.

The way we address the underlying physical problems with the use of coal is through the use of the latest in commercially available advanced clean coal technology, which means that the plant functions a whole lot more like a completely closed loop chemical facility than a more conventional "furnace and steam turbine" approach of conventional coal powerplant.

Here is how it works: