Can Coal Be Green?

wap writes "A coal-industry sponsored group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices thinks coal is green, and has been running television ads to make its point. The ad shows an eagle unable to fly because of smog, and then talks about how much cleaner coal is now and will be in the future, with a sub-title saying that this is because of EPA regulation. Coal burning is much cleaner now than it was due to new scrubbing technologies, but it still emits just as much carbon dioxide as ever. Carbon emissions can be reduced by increased efficiency through gasification, but the only way to stop coal from emitting carbon dioxide is carbon sequestration. Everyone agrees that sequestration is expensive, but not everyone agrees that it's even effective in the long term. Should we instead follow the suggestion of James Lovelock and go nuclear as has been discussed here before?"

Comments

How about a little education instead?

[Nagatzhul]

Instead of running around screaming about the sky falling (pun intended), how about working to educate the population? Instead of being alarmist, how about learning about what global warming is and what it is not? GlobalWarming.org is a site dedicated to educating people about what is really going on and who is pulling the strings. There is no realistic way to stabilize CO2 now or in the next hundred years or so. There is no way you can regulate it away. Best learn to deal with the facts.

Re:Unbiased?

[Nagatzhul]

Actually, "Junk science" is faulty scientific data and analysis used to used to further a special agenda. The faulty scientific data and analysis in this case is that data and analysis that is used to show that man is responsible for this warming trend, when in fact it would be happening if he did not exist on this planet at all.

The special agendas are wide and varied, but most of them are pursuing specific financial gains. DuPont, for example, when the patent for freon was about to expire, pushed that freon was bad for the ozone layer. This allowed them to introduce another product onto the market which they had a brand new patent on and helped maintain their lock on that part of the marketplace. Curious as to how they had touted freon as safe for environment up until that patent expired.