history. It was first put into wide-scale use in the Nazi era, when Hitler had few oil-rich allies. Ninety percent of his Luftwaffe planes ran on coal-based fuels

Later on, South Africa, also isolated because of Apartheid, used the process.

"So, here you have these horrible regimes, and now we want to take their technology. There's something kind of … spooky," Stahl said.

"Science is neutral," said Schweitzer. "They were pushed against the wall, because they couldn't get oil. We're pushed against the wall because the oil is so expensive."

The price tag to get his plan rolling - $1.5 billion - is a bargain, the governor says, now that crude is trading around $60 a barrel.

Dr. Robert Williams, a senior energy scientist at Princeton, agrees.

"At the oil prices that we expect for the long-term, it would be economic," Williams said.

Stahl told Williams about the jar of diesel Schweitzer showed her. Is this synthetic fuel going to be that clean and smell that good?

"Oh, yes. The Fischer-Tropsch diesel is a superb fuel," said Williams. "Not only is [it] cleaner than conventional diesel, but it also leads to improved engine performance."

And he explained why the process works environmentally.

"The reason this works and is much cleaner is you're not burning coal. You're instead gasifying coal," Williams said.

"And, therefore, things don't go up into the atmosphere?" Stahl asked.

"Well, when you gasify coal, you can take the pollutants out," Williams explained.

"You're saying before the coal is ever burned in any way, you can separate out the bad stuff?" Stahl asked.

"You do that very early on," Williams replied.

The new Fischer-Tropsch plants, Schweitzer says, wouldn't have the traditional smoke-belching smokestacks associated with today's coal-fired power plants. But he does acknowledge there would be some emissions.

"There would be less than one percent than you get in a plant like this," the governor