But he has decided instead to plunge $3160 into a small energy stock still battling with technical difficulties.

Linc Energy (ASX code LNC) aims to turn coal into gas without even digging it up, and then turn the gas into a diesel fuel that is much cleaner than the conventional product.

Linc is nothing if not ambitious.

In the next few years it hopes to set fire to a billion tonnes of coal under South Australia and generate enough gas to produce more than 200 megawatts of power and 20,000 barrels of oil a day for clean synthetic fuel.

And it expects to be able to do this for more than 50 years.

It has also been busy acquiring coal and oil and gas leases in the US.

Moreover, while drilling to assess the coal reserves in the Arkaringa Basin in South Australia’s far north, it encountered an “encouraging” oil show.

But its main focus remains underground coal gasification.

The basic technology is not new, but it has had to spend a lot of time and money improving the efficiency of its pilot plant at its headquarters at Chinchilla in Queensland.

There are also still question marks over potential impacts on groundwater, but the company is working on these and says it is confident it will have the technologies in place by the time it is ready to build its first commercial plant.

Feasibility studies for this, near Orroroo in South Australia, are to be carried out this year.

A couple of years ago LNC was a market darling and the shares were pushed to $5, partly in the expectation that it was about to sell its high quality coal fields in Queensland for oodles of cash.

That didn’t happen, but the company has kept trying and has now received one written offer, plus several expressions of interest for the coal assets, estimated to be worth $1.5 billion.

It clearly needs the money – at present it is burning almost $15 million in cash every three months.

If the sale falls through, the shares will probably take a big hit, but the Punter is prepared to take that risk.

The Punter has no financial qualifications and no links to the financial services industry. He owns shares in a number of companies featured in this column.