The first few paragraphs of this article from today’s Las Vegas Sun might give you an idea of the, uh, intellectual capacity of Nevada’s new governor:

Gov. Jim Gibbons announced a major energy initiative in his State of the State speech Monday, calling for the construction of a coal-to-liquids fuel plant in Nevada that would use rail lines to import coal, which would then be converted to diesel and jet fuel.

The proposal left many legislators and policy experts scratching their heads Tuesday. Nevada has an abundance of wind and solar energy sources but no coal, and the process consumes huge amounts of water, which is in short supply in Nevada.

Lawmakers said they expected the governor to provide more details Tuesday, but his energy adviser hadn’t been named publicly. Nor was Gibbons available to answer questions about his idea, which apparently derived from a conversation with Dave Freudenthal, the governor of Wyoming, a major coal-producing state.

“After visiting with Wyoming Gov. Freudenthal and seeing what his state is doing, I will encourage the creation of a coal-to-liquids fuels plant in Nevada, similar to a successful plant in Wyoming,” Gibbons had said.

I hope he doesn’t visit Niagara Falls anytime soon…