If you stop to listen to the “solution” to the energy crisis, you’ll hear millions of people (including most politicians) reassuring themselves that coal will be the new oil, because the United States has plenty of it and because there is now a way to burn coal “cleanly.” This last claim is pure fantasy. There is no feasible way of burning coal cleanly.
There is no place in the U.S. where coal is burned cleanly. Everywhere coal is burned, tons of CO2 are thrown into the atmosphere. The plans to set up clean coal plants have been scrapped, according the NYT. [1]
For years, scientists have had a straightforward idea for taming global warming. They want to take the carbon dioxide that spews from coal-burning power plants and pump it back into the ground. . . But it has become clear in recent months that the nation’s effort to develop the technique is lagging badly.
In January, the government canceled its support for what was supposed to be a showcase project, a plant at a carefully chosen site in Illinois where there was coal, access to the power grid, and soil underfoot that backers said could hold the carbon dioxide for eons.
Perhaps worse, in the last few months, utility projects in Florida, West Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota and Washington State that would have made it easier to capture carbon dioxide have all been canceled or thrown into regulatory limbo.
In short, “clean coal” is a fantasy. A U.S. energy policy based on the imminent availability of clean coal is a disaster.
Yet, simple as the idea [of clean coal] may sound, considerable research is still needed to be certain the technique would be safe, effective and affordable.
Burning coal for energy is dangerous for many reasons. [2] The lack of any real life method of burning coal “cleanly” is one of many reasons to steer our energy policy sharply toward conservation.
Epilogue:
Jeffrey Sachs [3], writing in Time Magazine:
An important measure of the government’s technology commitment is the federal budget for energy research and development. According to the International Energy Agency, U.S. spending for all energy research–nuclear, wind, coal, solar, biofuels, etc.–was a meager $3.2 billion in 2006. The Pentagon spends that much in about 40 hours. Spending on carbon capture and sequestration was a mere $67 million.
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