"Clean" Coal is Here!

I found this entertaining: http://www.thisisreality.org/#/?p=facility

Not only is "clean" coal technology far away (we don't know where we will safely and cleanly hide the CO2 that we still don't know how to sequester), the myth hides the painful truth that there is no quick fix. If we want to decrease overall emissions, it's going to effect our wallets and our lifestyles. There's no way around increased costs (to reflect full costs, health costs, environmental clean up, new technology, lower supply, and higher demand) and a change in lifestyle to avoid those costs!

The receptivity to the "clean coal" myth is based in the quasi-religious faith people have in the redemptive power of technology. It's perpetuated when politicians (like both 2008 presidential candidates), feed the myth. Mainstream politicians need to balance the following goals: 1) show eco-cred to 'organic' voters, 2) be somewhat honest that some change is needed (change to technology, not lifestlyes, that is), 3) capture voters in coal states, and 4)give corporate sponsors a nice return on their investment. "Just raise the banner of Clean Coal," their pollsters likely instructed, after field and focus group testing for each goal. (I did public relations, polling, and strategy work for a coal company a while back, so I recognized the language Obama and McCain used to package the myth.)

Voters need to be more skeptical. Let's be iconoclasts against this comforting, blind faith in technology. Of course, let's apply this technology to current coal plants and make them cleaner. But we're missing the point if we think there's a net improvement if we have to build 100 new "clean" coal plants. Technology is a process, not a golden goose: the same technology that can help a doctor see inside a broken leg is the same technology that still threatens to level cities. Ever the Homo habilis, it is us who decides whether the stick in our hand is used to attack someone or to tend the fire.

So, instead of looking to the ground to burn stored solar energy from the past, let's look to the sky and learn to capture solar energy directly from its source. (And plan on driving less too.... ).

Just remember, no matter how clean your coal is, you still have coal ash.