Dirty Lies for Clean Coal

Positive, one syllable words really sell. The business world and advertisers sell "clean" and "green," politicians sell "hope" and "change". When they are both nouns and verbs, they work even better. So we should not be surprised that millions of dollars are being spent on selling "clean coal" to the public.

This resonates because the environmental movement was built around clean air and clean water laws and regulatory programs. The coal industry is doing this because it feels threatened by the national and global interest in fighting global warming with its emphasis on greatly reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, associated with burning fossil fuels.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity launched a $15 million-plus campaign earlier this year. Television ads are constantly being aired telling us in glowing terms about clean coal, as if the coal industry has cleaned up its act by using green technology. Just one problem, the clean coal message is one big green lie. With the likelihood that the Obama administration will provide huge sums of money to stimulate a green economy, including alternative energy sources, the coal industry that wants to greatly expand is willing to pump money into a deceptive advertising campaign.

The idea of clean coal technology has been around for a very long time and the federal government through the Department of Energy has provided millions of dollars for many projects. But the inescapable fact is that current coal burning energy plants that supply a large fraction of the nation's electricity do not use clean coal technology when it comes to fighting global warming. Worse, there is no evidence that even newly built coal burning plants could use truly clean technology.

It is fine for this business group to say "Our goal is to advance the development and deployment of advanced clean coal technologies that will produce electricity with near-zero emissions." But it is a total lie that such technologies exist now or have been fully developed for commercial use, or that they appear likely to become viable in the foreseeable future. In fact, rather than spend government funds trying to develop them, there are better alternatives for a green economy.

Sure, there is a solid argument that the US has an abundant supply of coal and that using domestic coal is better than using imported petroleum, but relatively little petroleum is used to generate electricity. What merits emphasis is reducing our use of electricity, which is part of the new conservation ethic. Also critically important is that the alternative ways to produce electricity in renewable ways that produce no greenhouse gases is to use solar and wind energy technologies that are commercially viable. And they are what the coal industry fears. To greatly use these approaches, however, requires building more and better transmission networks to move electricity from the geographical areas where solar and wind make the most sense to more distant high population areas.

Also important was a recent Supreme Court ruling that makes it possible for the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide as an air pollutant. The Obama administration could really make it difficult for coal plants to achieve compliance with stringent regulations. And whatever the US does to curb carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants could greatly impact other countries focusing on coal burning, such as China. This is good and it could help the US export green technologies.

You are now seeing some clever television ads revealing the big lie about clean coal. Believe them. The group of environmental organizations, called The Reality Coalition, behind these ads are absolutely correct when they say "Let's be clear: there are no US homes, factories, shopping centers or churches powered by coal plants that capture and store their global warming pollution." Al Gore is involved with this effort, surely making the coal industry fearful.

Clean, green, hope, change and other marketing slogans work because people let themselves be fooled. Don't be fooled by clean coal.