Reply #4: Why is everything either "black" or "white" is so many people's eyes?

[OKIsItJustMe]

We have made coal cleaner in the past. We can continue to make it cleaner in the future.

It will never be absolutely clean..

Honestly, this debate reminds me of BushCo:
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040807.html

... Because of these steps at home and abroad, our country is safer than it was on September the 11th, 2001. Yet, we're still not safe. ...

Under this view, we will asymptotically approach "safe" always getting "safer," but never being "safe." The question should be, "When are we safe enough?"

James Hansen, and a whole host of environmental organizations believe we should be researching "Carbon Capture" and "Sequestration." Why? Because we're not going to stop burning coal overnight. We just aren't. Whether you're pro-nuke or anti-nuke, this is a simple fact that you've got to recognize.

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/coal-power-warming-world-0151.html

October 15, 2008

So-Called “Clean Coal” Technology Offers Promise Along with Considerable Risks, New Report Finds

Government Should Back Demonstration Projects; Nix New Coal-Fired Power Plants that Don't Capture and Store Carbon Emissions

WASHINGTON (October 15, 2008) ...

The United States has significant coal reserves and likely will continue to generate power from it for many years to come. Climate projections, however, indicate that the United States must swiftly cut carbon dioxide emissions and ultimately reduce them by at least 80 percent of 2000 levels by mid-century to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Coal is the nation's largest source of global warming pollution, representing approximately a third of U.S. emissions, equal to the combined output of all U.S. cars, trucks, buses, trains and boats.

The UCS report, "Coal Power in a Warming World," proposes that the federal government fund five to 10 full-scale demonstration projects to test carbon-capture-and-storage technology's ability to cut coal power plant emissions. The report also calls for a halt in construction of new coal plants that do not capture and store carbon emissions, even though U.S. utilities are currently planning to build more than 100 plants without the technology. The country can meet its near-term energy needs and curb emissions, the report contends, using readily available renewable-energy and energy-efficiency technologies.

...

"Even if coal capture and storage works on a commercial scale, coal will still be dirty," said Steve Clemmer, UCS Clean Energy Program research director and co-author of the report. "The technology doesn't address the environmental threat posed by mining, transporting and disposing of coal." To make coal cleaner, he said, the government should ban mountaintop removal mining, strengthen oversight of mine waste slurry impoundments, and tighten and enforce mine safety laws.

Given that coal has significantly worse health and environmental consequences than other energy options that may prove less expensive, less risky and less harmful to public health and the environment, the report calls on the federal government to dramatically increase the deployment of energy-efficiency, renewable-energy and energy-storage technologies while it invests in carbon-capture-and-storage-technology demonstration projects. Doing so would help ensure that federal research and development funding does not unduly favor coal. It also would expand the nation's options for responding to climate change.

...

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/Coal-power-in-a-warming-world.pdf