WHAT IS CLEAN COAL AND WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?
Everyone is talking about the clean coal technology of the Twenty First Century, but it seems that we havent agreed yet on what clean coal is. In fact, clean coal means different things to different people. Prominent environmentalists including Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Clubs Global Warming and Energy Program, believe that the term clean coal is misleading: “There is no such thing as ‘clean coal’ and there never will be. It’s an oxymoron”. People in the coal industry point to the advances in cleaning up coal over the last several years and say that todays product is clean. In truth, the definition of clean coal depends on the agenda of the group calling for clean coal. Nuclear power advocates say clean coal must be able to provide the same power output with the same near zero emissions. A panel of MIT professors, who are looking for more R&D money from the government, said that current Department of Energy research will not produce clean coal power. They suggested the governme
