Is it Possible for Coal to be Clean? (Or, Joe Biden was Right Before He was Wrong.)
Whether or not Joe Biden supports “clean coal,” let’s hope that he and Barack Obama will look beyond one of America’s most polluting industries to focus on other, cleaner and more viable energy resources, such as geothermal.
The truth is that proposed methods of producing clean coal, such as carbon sequestration (in which carbon emissions are pumped and stored below ground) are mostly still in the theoretical stages, and do nothing to confront other coal by-products, such as mercury, which poisons local water sources and makes fish unsafe to eat.
So Joe may be right, in that as long as China continues to build new coal-fired plants with abandon, it’s well worth it to develop technology that will keep those plants as clean as possible. But on the home front, our money and energy will be better invested in new, renewable industries, that will employ just as many people (and under better conditions) as today’s coal mines do.
As Simran Sethi writes in her latest column for the Huffington Post (from which most of this info is lifted), “I’d rather we spend out time, money and energy building bridges that actually get us somewhere. (Wink.)”
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Merete is a writer, filmmaker, producer and project manager, and was once-upon-a-time the Managing Editor of elephant journal's print incarnation, from 2006-2008. Today, you can find her on Twitter @meretemueller and on her blog To The Bones. She's currently working on a documentary about the small house movement, "TINY: A Story About Living Small."
Actually, “Clean Coal” is a complete misnomer. Ask anyone at Environmental Defense. In fact, there is an Environmental Defense office right in Boulder. Ask Dan Grossman, a former CO legislator, who is now running the office all about it.
I’m not quite sure how to say this; you made it etxmreley easy for me!
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