March 23, 2006: With oil at $60 a barrel, and likely to stay that high, it now becomes economically feasible to get fuel from other sources, like coal. So the U.S. Air Force, which currently consumes nearly 80 million barrels of oil a year, is trying to build a coal-to-oil plant that would supply about 14 percent of those needs. This plant would be in the United States, where there is plenty of coal available for conversion. The air force is trying to arrange the financing from private investors, using a fuel purchase contract from the air force as a lure. The air force consumes over half the fuel used by the Department of Defense.