We would like to thank Sovacool et al. for engaging our recent work, however, we feel their criticisms are primarily directed at the claims of carbon capture and storage technology, which was not addressed in our analysis. The intent of our original analysis was to provide a systematic approach to judge the most efficient use of coal resources as a method for addressing the problem of foreign oil dependence. We have attempted to separate this discussion involving the most effective use of a resource from a discussion of the desirability of using the resource at all, which we feel is a separate issue. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.