Clean Coal: Reality or Myth?

Coal plants are approximately 50% of the electricity generated in the United States. However, coal fired power plants are one of the major contributors to climate change. These plants are responsible for 80% of the electric industry’s CO₂ emissions. The energy industry is moving in a new “green” direction as the grave affects of climate change are beginning to be known. Renewable forms of energy are in and old forms of production are on the way out. The coal industry is fighting to stay a major energy producer with their “clean coal” campaign. The major questions are: when will the technology be commercially available if at all, and can coal ever be truly clean?

The government has designated $3.4 billion dollars to some clean coal projects. Some of these projects are sponsored by Babcock & Wilcox, American Electric Power, and Duke Energy. The technology that these projects are going to used will at most capture 40% of the CO₂ in about 10 years. There are many projects related to “clean coal” across the nation but they are experiencing many problems. The US General Accounting Office looked at 13 clean coal projects, 8 of them had financial problems or other major delays and 6 were behind schedule from anywhere between 2-7 years.

Another major concern for environmentalist is that even if the carbon sequestration technology works, there are still environmental impacts to coal production. The technology when working traps the waste products and turns them into another medium, there will always be waste. Also what about problems like mountain top removal and coal ash disposal? Both of these have huge environmental impacts and they will continue to affect the environment even when the carbon technology is put in place.

The bottom line is that coal can never be clean and the technology claiming to make coal clean can only make it cleaner. The real solution to our energy problems are renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind. Clean coal technology is not a realistic goal for the near future. Companies have been researching this technology for decades and it still is not likely to happen on a commercial scale in the next decade. Coal has huge impacts from the mining process to the making of electricity. Even if the technology works there are still a number of environmental problems that coal brings. Coal will never be clean.