Carbon Purging

Clean coal is a lie. Let's repeat - clean coal is a lie. It simply does not exist in the United States. In fact, there is no project anywhere in the world storing CO2 stripped from the products of combustion of coal burnt for electricity generation at coal fired power stations. It has been estimated that commercial-scale clean coal power stations with carbon capture and sequestration can't be commercially viable and widely adopted before 2020 or 2025.

Clean coal is a public relations term as much as it is an environmental concept. The first problem with clean coal is this: even if we had the technology working to remove CO2 from coal combustion and permanently store it, the process of mining coal is horrendous. It ruins vast landscapes, including entire rivers and streams, and leaves the mountain in ruins. Further, transport of the coal causes CO2 pollution.

Some industry groups posing as environmental groups have said that clean coal does exist. They are only referring to current existing technologies mandated by law to remove pollutants other than CO2.

Implementing CC&S uses large amounts of energy as well, so more coal is needed to burn to get the same amount of energy as less coal would have created.

Coal combustion is one of the leading causes of anthropogenic global warming. We need to stop allowing coal companies to do as they wish and we need to make the urgent energy changes needed to prevent irreversible damage to our climate.