There’s no such thing as clean coal
As the election nears and people continue to fret about gasoline
prices, we’re hearing more and more about
”
clean coal.
”
Don’t make me laugh.
Like
”
jumbo shrimp,
”
”
creative process
”
and
”
empty load,
”
the words
”
clean
”
and
”
coal
”
should not appear in the same sentence.
There’s no such thing as clean coal
As the election nears and people continue to fret about gasoline prices, we’re hearing more and more about “clean coal.”
Don’t make me laugh.
Like “jumbo shrimp,” “creative process” and “empty load,” the words “clean” and “coal” should not appear in the same sentence.
There ain’t no such thing as clean coal.
Coal is black, dirty stuff. It damages those who harvest it as well as those who burn it.
Like the Clear Skies Initiative that actually rolled back clean air standards, clean coal is code for “cheap, dirty energy.”
More than 104,000 miners have died in coalmines since 1900, according to the Washington Post. Twice as many more have died from black lung disease. Mines leak pollutants including mercury into our waters and the air. Yet, in the last six years, the Mine Safety and Health Administration decided not to assess fines for more than 4,000 violations. Even in the face of that, the Bush administration sought earlier this year to cut mine safety funds by 6.5 percent.
What wasn’t the Bush administration cutting? Billions in funding to reduce carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants to create “clean coal.” At the same time, the administration advanced proposals to cut investments in energy efficiency, solar energy and hydrogen fuel.
Coal once came from underground mines that swallowed their workers each day, and returned them to daylight swabbed in black dust. Open pit mines produced more coal. Today, much of the nation’s coal comes via a newer process, one that is rewriting the geography of coal-rich Appalachia.
“Mountain topping” is the process of scraping away whatever lies over a seam of coal, then filling up nearby hollows with all the stuff they don’t sell. The process entombs waterways, and occasionally, even small communities.
At least that’s a faster death than other communities, those perched atop tapped out underground mines, sometimes experience. As mine tunnels give way, homes and other buildings can be slowly swallowed.
The idea of looking for solutions better than good, old coal is always a hot potato in Congress. Nobody in that august assembly wants to go home to tell constituents that he or she had voted to take away their jobs in favor of cleaner skies and rivers.
But that’s exactly what needs to take place. Development of some of the technologies that may replace coal could offer better jobs to coal communities, jobs that don’t try to kill you every time you go down into a mine.
“Clean coal” blunts the reality, the reality that we are hurtling along on the global warming highway. There’s nearly universal agreement that global warming exists, and that it’s pretty much certain to muck things up, even to the point where the whole planet becomes a lousy place to live. So naturally there’s agreement that Something Must Be Done.
But for a member of Congress, something must be done as long as 1) it does not affect me and 2) it does not cost my constituents a dime in lost jobs or a dime more in higher taxes.
Perhaps the best solution that’s been advanced so far is a “cap and trade” agreement, in which pollution limits are set, and polluters must buy credits in order to continue doing things like burning coal.
But the problem of coal pollution is going to take some big thinking, thinking much bigger than the Madison Avenue approach of taking something odious and giving it a shiny new name.
Clean coal my arse.
