There is no such thing as clean coal

President Obama is the country’s biggest champion of the myth of “clean coal”.   Carbon capture and storage is not yet operational and it’s unsure if it will ever be.  Unfortunately, sinking all this money into CCS to use for coal is a big waste.  CCS is not going to solve the problems with coal, such as toxic waste and mercury leaking into our air and water.   It’s probably necessary to have carbon capture and sequestration on hand in case climate change enters the runaway phase, but it should not be used on coal plants.  Coal plants should be shut down and if CCS is used for anything it should be to remove CO2 from the air in case of an emergency.  But the question remains:  and put it where?

The problem of where to “sequester” or store carbon emissions is still a huge issue. We cannot put it on the ocean bed or into rock formations unless we know for sure it will stay there, and no one yet knows whether it will.  Yet on February 3rd President Obama issued a memorandum declaring our use of coal as necessary, as a job creator and as a cheap form of energy.   It’s none of the above.  There’s also a catch:  as soon as the CCS is implemented, due to its huge cost, the cost of using coal will skyrocket.  That makes ‘clean coal’ not only a myth, but a very expensive one and the costs will be passed on to consumers.  (Yet Republicans are for this . . . why?)

The use of coal is  environmentally devastating.  Scientists at the journal Science recently recommended that mountaintop removal to get at coal should stop immediately.  And carbon capture and storage won’t stop the pervasive emissions of mercury that get into our land and water, poisoning fish and the people who eat it.  CCS would do nothing to prevent acid rain and mercury poisoning of our lakes and streams.  From the White House, Feb. 3, 2010:

“SUBJECT:  A Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon Capture and Storage

For decades, the coal industry has supported quality high-paying jobs for American workers, and coal has provided an important domestic source of reliable, affordable energy.  At the same time, coal-fired power plants are the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and coal accounts for 40 percent of global emissions.  Charting a path toward clean coal is essential to achieving my Administration’s goals of providing clean energy, supporting American jobs, and reducing emissions of carbon pollution.  Rapid commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage (CCS), will help position the United States as a leader in the global clean energy race.

My Administration is already pursuing a set of concrete initiatives to speed the commercial development of safe, affordable, and broadly deployable CCS technologies.  We have made the largest Government investment in carbon capture and storage of any nation in [...]