Clean coal is an oxymoron

On TV news tonight I see Sarah Palin is getting ready to blast Joe Biden and Barrick Obama for opposing “clean coal,” although I noted Obama has said he does support it. He shouldn’t.

Coal is inherently dirty. “Clean coal” is simply use of coal in a way that is not so dirty as other ways. Even then, some “clean coal” technologies really are as dirty or worse than conventional coal when we look at the entire process. For example, carbon sequestration of CO2 emissions from coal will take (or waste) a lot of energy. Synthetic gasoline from coal is very inefficient.

The West is going to bear the brunt of the burden (aside from the world climate) from these clean coal technologies.

Greg Gorden writes about this in “Writers on the Range” in High Country News. Clean coal is an oxymoron

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