Clean Coal is a misnomer! There is no such thing as Clean Coal!
Coal is a dirty, nasty way to generate power.
Burning coal in a power plant releases all sorts of nasty metals and chemicals into the environment. Of course, it may be technically feasible to collect all the solid emissions and sequester the carbon. But, it is probably not economically feasible. And the power companies resist cleanup legislation whenever they can.
But the real problem with coal is what it does to the communities, land and water where it is mined. Coal mining has ruined some of the most beautiful places in the U.S. Mountains in Appalachia have been flattened and the valleys filled in, killing the flora and fauna in the very top of the watersheds from which millions of people derive their drinking water.
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Coal mining exposes minerals to air and flowing ground water.
The ground water picks up sulfur compounds from pyrites, producing
sulfuric acid, which dissolves metals out of the surrounding rocks.
The water can build up in the mines until it finds an exit and flows out
to the surface, carrying acid and other toxic chemicals into the
waterways where it kills everything. The best one can hope for is man made streams flowing into acid mitigation ponds full of crushed limestone. Hardly the paradise that the Appalachian mountains once were. The end result is ugly, discolored streams in which nothing lives. No fish, no frogs, no bugs, no plants. All because coal mining is nasty. |
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Some argue that coal mining is an important source of jobs and income to otherwise underprivileged rural areas.
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The coal companies do bring jobs. But when the coal runs out, they move
on, and the short term prosperity they brought evaporates leaving abandoned
homesteads, potholed roads, shuttered businesses and shattered dreams.
Besides its effects on the environment, coal takes a heavy
toll on society and humanity. Read more here:
http://www.wvculture.org/HISTORY/journal_wvh/wvh53-2.html
http://www.as.wvu.edu/~srsh/lewis_1.html
From John Prine's "Paradise" (listen)
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Here's a realistic article about the feasibility of alternative energy
sources from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/13/mackay.energy/index.html