Strip the thorium out of coal, use it in liquid fluoride thorium reactors, then use the electric energy produced to squeeze the coal for diesel fuel, like the WWII German Fischer-Tropsch process did.
We need to mine all the coal we can put to use and frack like mad.
This is the same mindset as those that told us in the 1970’s that we would soon run out of oil as our known reserves were approaching depletion and since the earth is a globe of a known size, there was a definite limit to what our globe, as with any globe, could contain.
We now have proof of how smart those “experts” were. We don't need more of their predictions and silly solutions.