At a high temperature and pressure, gasification converts coal, or other carbon fuels, into synthesis gas that is either burned in a turbine to produce electricity, as in Summit's case, or turned into other products, like diesel oil, fertilizer and pipeline-quality natural gas.

FORBES: Old King Coal

Having managed her state's department responsible for oil and gas exploration and exploitation, having negotiated a long-delayed natural gas pipeline through Canada to the Lower 48 and having been married for nearly two decades to a blue-collar worker in Alaska's North Slope oil fields, she knows more about the subject than all three of the others on the two parties' tickets put together.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Sarah Palin's experience

In 2005, with its joint venture partners, Chevron produced 296, 000 barrels of oil and 756 million cubic feet of natural gas per day in Kazakhstan and moved output through its jointly owned Caspian Pipeline.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Renamed Cornerstone Natural Gas, Endevco sold off an oil refinery and some pipeline assets to help pay down debt, and trimmed staff to lower operating costs.

FORBES: Companies, People, Ideas

Longer term limitations also depend upon whether pipeline projects that are located exclusively in Canada proceed (such as the proposed Northern Gateway, the Trans Mountain expansion, and the TransCanada proposal to ship crude oil east to Ontario on a converted natural gas pipeline).

FORBES: State Dept: Denying Keystone XL Would Not Slow Oil Sands Development

Some hours north of where I am on a trip with BACKROADS, a travel company based in Berkeley, California, sits the vast and controversial Canadian tar sands containing vast amounts of oil and natural gas, which are some day going to be sent through an 1800 mile pipeline to the Louisiana Gulf Coast that the US State Department has just approved.

FORBES: Canada's Magnificent And Priceless Water Supply

But, even as Palin enjoyed populist acclaim for her grand gestures sharing the wealth and standing up to Big Oil it was far from certain that the natural-gas pipeline, which she claimed as her proudest accomplishment, would ever get built.

NEWYORKER: The State of Sarah Palin

In a single stroke, the pipeline could ease its greatest strategic dilemma: Russia's stranglehold over its oil and natural gas deposits.

CNN: THE BIG OIL SHOCK