How clean coal cooks your brain

"Clean coal" is not an actual invention, a physical thing – it is an advertising slogan. Like "fat-free donuts" or "interest-free loans."

An article by Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal and Rolling Stone contributing editor on the scam of "clean coal." This is some of the most damaging propaganda ever forced on the American people by the coal industry.

Is there anything I should know?? When I started posting on Kos a few years ago, there was this learning curve about all the little "insider" things I had to do, or shouldn't do.

optimal health? kidding there, it's an "inside joke", one that I have played on myself several times. Welcome hope you stay awhile. :)

but check in at the lounge and say hi.

:hi:

Thanks for posting this.

A few years ago I briefly worked for a Washington DC consulting firm that, among its many contracts, promoted "clean coal." I used to argue about this with the person in charge of that contract. No wonder my tenure there was so short.

I would love to chat about this with you - it would make a great post, if you're comfortable with that. Let me know - my email is: desmogblog@gmail.com. If no, all good.

Is a really active forum, I'm so glad I joined. This is great.

Try to edit it out if you have the time, or ask a Mod to delete it. Freepers can read it and abuse your account. You can have duers PM you with info if you need it rather than send you email.
:hi:

Won't do it again - but hey, they already all email me! I run this site: www.desmogblog.com - I get at least 30 emails a day calling me everything from an "eco-nazi" to much worse. But you're right, thanks for the tip :)

What's it mean to go on 'the greatest page'???

from readers, ends up on the Greatest Page. If you look at the icons at the top of your DU screen, Greatest is the star icon next to the Latest.

The more recommendations a post gets, the higher it rises on the Greatest Page. The top five vote-getters appear on the DU home page.

There is a little thingie at the bottom of each post that says Recommend. If you click it, that means you recommend that post. You can't recommend your own posts, though.

are we supposed to do for energy? We can't use nuclear (it's too dangerous), we can't use coal (it's too dirty), we can't use our natural gas or oil (we destroy the environment)? We can use solar and wind energy but in many areas that is not feasible since there is not enough sunshine or wind. In this area we have a river with a dam every 25 miles or so that we could install a hydro generator on (we can't do that because of constraints from the Corps of Engineers and the EPA. What the
f---- are we supposed to do?

Stop messing around and wasting billions on the dream that someday coal will be clean and do what the rest of the world is way ahead of the US on already - solar, wind, geothermal and most importantly energy efficiency - stop using so much energy in the first place. China has higher fuel efficiency standards that the US for crying out loud.

by replacing a 10-year-old refrigerator with a new energy-efficient model, and not installing the icemaker on it. Every time the PEPCO bill arrives, I am amazed at how much less electricity this one uses.

Now that the kids have moved out, we don't need ice cubes very much. A couple of plastic ice trays suffices. We bought a fairly basic Sears Kenmore top-freezer model after looking up Energy Star ratings, and then waiting for it to go on sale. It cost about $900 for everything, including delivery and removing the old one, and should pay for itself in less than 3 years.

What? China is filthy and is an even worse polluter than America was ever.

“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

- Thomas Edison, 1931

wind and tides. Where I live we don't have enough sun or wind to make it feasible for power generation and we have no tides. What planet are you on? People even bitch about solar panels and wind farms ruining their view. The Kennedys of all people have been fighting to stop a wind farm in their neighborhood? The great environmentalist Al Gore lives in a 20000 square foot house and uses enough electric to power a whole sub-division, so does john Edwards.

Let's see:

nuclear-too dangerous
coal-too dirty/mining unsightly/global warming
gas-drilling harms environment/global warming
oil-drilling harms environment/global warming
solar/wind-unsightly
hydro-kills some damn salamander

Do you use electricity and drive a car? If yes it's your fault for living.

And another 20% from wind that the DOE is projecting - coal currently produces 50% of US energy, so between solar and wind, we're almost there. Add in another 10% easy from efficiency and another 10% from geothermal and we're done like dinner. Not hard, just needs to be the political will - and we're getting there on that front as well.

not enough sun or wind and no tides. What do you propose we do, burn candles (oh no that would cause global warming). You're not going to get better than 10% of the electrical demand in this country from any of your dream world sources. Besides the solar panels and wind mills would block your view of your dream world. We have enough coal to last for a century and it is being burnt clean as practical.

The capacity to transmit electricity over long distances has grown exponentially. I would suggest you're living a dream world if you think coal is going to continue to be mined (blowing up mountains) and burned (the largest single source of greenhouse gas in the US) as it is today. The world is moving on, other countries (and many States) are moving to renewable energy.

megawatts of electricity from coal that we feed into the grid so you can live comfortably in your dream world. This valley is loaded with with coal fired generating plants and unlike other parts of the country we rarely have a pollution alert these days, back in the early 70's we had a pollution advisory pretty much all summer long. We also have a Nuclear plant, I believe it was the first nuclear plant built in the US and it has run safely for decades.

nut-case special interest group has a reason we can't use it, including solar and wind power.

Because "clean" coal still has the little problem of CO2 release, and no commercial sequestration plants online yet to even validate the concept.

They (the coal industry) also show up at democratic political events to hand out propaganda literature on 'clean coal', with 'clean coal' t-shirts, a 'clean coal' van, 'clean coal' talking points, and teenagers managed by a supervisor to work the lines and crowds. It's an all-in-one advertising, propaganda and astroturf campaign.

Its the reason I started really looking into the whole issue of "clean coal."

He says that burning coal produces CO2...true.

He says that sequestering that CO2 hasb't been fully researched...true.

He says that other forms of energy production should be developed...true.


However, the title implies that coal cannot be converted into electricity (or fuel) in a clean manner, and that's simply not true.

Where is coal being converted to energy in a clean manner? The coal industry hasn't even figured out how to lower mercury emissions, let alone deal with greenhouse gas.

http://www.nrdc.org/OnEarth/05fal/coal6.asp

Yes, we still have a way to go, but the technology is there. The idea of "Clean Coal" is being oversold by old-time coal and energy people, but it is a valid technology to pursue. It's not all hype.

Because the FutureGen site had it's funding canceled by the US government, and the Statoil sequestration project also was canceled.

The only areas where large amounts of CO2 are injected underground right now are declining oil fields, where (ironically) it is used to produce MORE oil and thus MORE CO2.

We don't have another 20-30 years to wait for CO2 sequestration research to be completed and implemented, because in that time our emissions will have pushed us well over the tipping point to ecological destruction.

You're right. There is no such thing as clean coal, but you would be amazed at the number of dunderheads who drool all over themselves even here thinking about IGCC coal.

Here's just one example of thousands I've seen over the last years I've been wading through depressing and delusional wishful thinking:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=73404&mesg_id=73692

It's mostly stuff from airheads, fluff, denialists and badly educated lazy "thinkers" but it is a reflection of how weak thinking can be, even among those who putatively identify themselves as being on the left.

"Clean Coal" is a idiom for self delusion.