With the summer driving season heating up and oil prices over $50 per barrel for the foreseeable future, there's no doubt that consumers are feeling the pinch at the pump. So now, in my opinion, is a great time to talk about new energy technologies—technology that is being developed to find more oil and ways to use it effectively.

One of these technologies that I'm most interested in is coal-to-liquids. Basically, this is a process that extracts oil from coal and it can be used as gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. One of my favorite companies in this field is Rentech (RTK), as they have been working for 25 years on a clean version of the coal-to-liquids process. Plus, with their version they're able to turn coal into gasoline for less than $35 per barrel.

This technology may seem a bit out there, and not even on your radar screen, but it is on the minds of both houses in Congress. Recently, both houses in a bipartisan agreement put together a coal-to-liquids financing package. If it goes through in the energy bill this summer, it could include $30 billion in loan guarantees for coal-to-liquids plants, a 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit for coal-to-liquids fuels through 2020, automatic subsidies if the price of oil drops below $40 a barrel and permission for the Air Force to sign 25-year contracts for almost a billion dollars a year of coal-based jet fuel. Wow!