No matter how much Big Coal tries to reassure us that they’re perfectly safe, this week it became clear that coal trains – to export US coal to China! – should not be part of our clean energy future. Three derailments happened this past week, including one that caused at least two deaths. Why now? […]
“ “Carbon sequestration” seems like a good idea: Instead of pumping CO2 into the air, why not liquefy it and pump it into the ground? This is one of the linchpins of clean coal. If we do that, we can keep burning coal and natural gas, we don’t get global warming and nobody has to […]
With ‘clean coal’ and nuclear power likely to play a larger-than-expected role in climate change legislation, are we heading for an iceberg? Literally, no–they’re all melting. Figuratively, maybe…
An archive of my Big Coal cartoons. The pen is mightier than the sword (but probably not as mighty as the multi-billion dollar coal industry…).
Duke Energy, the North Carolina-based electric utility announced on Wednesday it would be leaving the clean coal lobbying group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), over differences with the organizations opposition to clean energy and climate legislation being considered by Congress.
It’s well known that politics is dirty, but recently, anti-climate bill tactics have sunk to a new low: forging letters written by senior citizens against the Waxman-Markey climate bill. Five more suspected forgeries were released today bringing the grand total to 58 letters under investigation.
China, while indicating that it is ready to accept sectoral carbon emission cuts, has unveiled plans to build massive coal reserves in order to avoid counter any shortages in the near future.
In response to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s recent comments that the offshore wind energy resource in the U.S. could potentially provide 25% of our electricity and replace the need for coal-fired power plants, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal balked, telling reporters: “Ain’t going to happen.”
The Clean Coal discussion is not as simple as anyone (on either side of the propaganda machine) wants to make it out to be. To quote Bruce Niles from the Sierra Club: “Clean Coal means different things to different people.” If clean coal is what the coal industry wants, it’s already here. Environmental scientists agree that Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) has some potential to make coal cleaner. But that nuance is lost in this discussion.
We can protest coal-fired power plants all we’d like–but must not forget the importance of conservation. Conserving energy has an immediate impact.
We’ve seen the best clean coal ad ever and we’ve seen the coal lobby co-opt the Obama message, now we can enjoy the tongue-in-cheek stylings of the Coen brothers and their take on “clean coal”.
Can Green activists play the civil disobedience card… and still be taken seriously?
The Air Force has abandoned its plans for building a coal-to-liquid plant to produce aircraft fuel. While the plan would have reduced foreign dependence, all those emissions would have kinda sucked.
You don’t see commercials for biotech companies that do stem-cell research do it. You’re not seeing wind turbine manufacturers buy ad-time doing it. So why is it that the “clean coal” industry group running primetime television commercials taking soundbites and snippets from what Pres. Obama has said about coal.
This week our friends at ZapRoot take an exhaustive look at the elusive clean coal. In short, the reality of clean coal is that it doesn’t exist and now ZapRoot has jumped into the mix with does some more entertaining debunking of the clean coal myth. Don’t blink at the beginning because you’ll miss a […]