Good question, bad answer on Feb. 1st

The latest EPA headline is distressing to anyone who knows there is no such thing as “clean coal”. Today the news from the EPA declared: “Obama Announces Steps to Boost Biofuels, Clean Coal“.

“President Barack Obama today announced a series of steps his Administration is taking as part of its comprehensive strategy to enhance American energy independence while building a foundation for a new clean energy economy, and its promise of new industries and millions of jobs. At a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors from around the country, the President laid out three measures that will work in concert to boost biofuels production and reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. “

What Obama doesn’t want to admit is that the danger is not from foreign oil, it’s from carbon emissions, which come more from coal than from anything else.  Coal, according to scientist James Hansen, will kill us all if it’s not removed from our energy porfolio.  Obama has not gotten the memo on coal.

The video question came from a young woman who asked why he’s focusing on nuclear power and coal when more good safe jobs, in her opinion, would come from renewable energy.  (Coal is the real culprit, not nuclear, which is carbon emissions free).  Obama’s answer was probably political reality, but it wasn’t climate change reality. He responded:

“With respect to clean coal technology, it is not possible at this point to completely eliminate coal from the menu of our energy options.  And if we are ever going to deal with climate change in a serious way, where we know China and India are going to be greatly reliant on coal, we’ve got to start developing clean coal technologies that can sequester the harmful emissions, because otherwise — countries like China and India are not going to stop using coal — we’ll still have those same problems but we won’t have the technology to make sure that it doesn’t harm the environment over the long term.

Did he just say, “It is not possible???”

“So I know that there’s some skepticism about whether there is such a thing as clean coal technology.  What is true is right now that we don’t have all the technology to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, but the technology is close and it makes sense for us to make that investment now, not only because it will be good for America but it will also ultimately be good internationally.  We can license and export that technology in ways that help other countries use a better form of energy that’s going to be helpful to the climate change issue.”

Of course it’s possible to stop using coal; he just doesn’t want to steer us in that direction because it would be hard for him to do that politically, and it would mean the loss of even more jobs.  He seems resigned to [...]