James Robinson wrote:

One of the closest is the liquafaction of coal. We have vast supplies in
North America, and it is a relatively straight-forward process to convert
it to liquid fuel. (see the Fischer-Tropsch process) The Germans and South
Africans used synfuels made from coal when they couldn't get cheaper
petroleum products. They worked well.

Okay, here's the aviation tie-in ...

The USAF recently flew a B-52 with synfuel made throught the FT
process. First flight was with 2 of 8 engines powered by synfuel; IIRC
subsequent flights had all 8 burning synthetic?

I think a combination of wind turbines and sea turbines would be a
great combination for limitless electrical power generation. Here's the
site for an interesting proposal.

http://www.capewind.org