Just saw a "Clean Coal" commercial during meltdown coverage...

[MellowDem]

They got on that fast. "This is America's energy" blah blah blah usual bullshit.

[anneboleyn]

1. We saw this too -- my husband said the same thing.

[Skip_In_Boulder]

2. Never miss an opportunity to hustle your product. n/t

[Rage for Order]

14. "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjMTNPXYu-Y&feature=related

[Mimosa]

3. Clean coal is safer than nuclear

If miners are protected and up to date anti-pollution measures are used, it is far safer than nuclear energy. At least it won't irradiate us and our food supply.

[wuushew]

4. There is no clean coal

n/t

[Petrushka]

7. Clean coal? Wastes from coal-fired plants carry 100 times more radiation than nuclear power plants.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
--snip--

*Editor's Note (posted 12/30/08): In response to some concerns raised by readers, a change has been made to this story. The sentence marked with an asterisk was changed from "In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—and other coal waste contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste" to "In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." Our source for this statistic is Dana Christensen, an associate lab director for energy and engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as 1978 paper in Science authored by J.P. McBride and colleagues, also of ORNL.

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

--snip--

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
--snip--

Considering that the U.S. nuclear power industry has been required to invest in expensive measures to greatly reduce releases of radioactivity from nuclear fuel and fission products to the environment, should coal-fired power plants be allowed to do so without constraints?

--snip--

[jacquelope]

9. +1000! n/t

.

[kristopher]

15. Careful, that would be in support of Nuclear Industry Lie #1 - nuclear power is clean

The article is an exercise in cherry picked information that, while technically accurate, does nothing to support the idea that nuclear power is either clean or desirable.

Would you point to the part of McBrides's comparison where the effects of radioactivity from the full fuel cycle of nuclear power and coal are compared? Where is the accounting on the nuclear side of the emissions from large scale accidents such as Chernobyl, TMI, the various smaller incidents that have occurred and now Fukushima? How many orders of magnitude larger are those events than the parameters used by McBride?

There are several other ways to demonstrate that McBride's analysis lacks validity for the purpose it is used, but that really isn't the issue at all since the the problems of cost, proliferation, safety and waste are the ones that cripple the industry's efforts to pilfer the public purse.

The 6 Standard lies of the nuclear industry

1. nuclear power is cheap;
2. learning and new standardized designs solve all past problems;
3. the waste problem is a non-problem, especially if we’d follow the lead of many other nations and “recycle” our spent fuel;
4. climate change makes a renaissance inevitable; 5. there are no other large low-carbon “baseload” alternatives;
6. there’s no particular reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations.

From a list originally compiled by former NRC Commissioner Bradford

[joshcryer]

8. Clean coal is a mythical beast that is effectively a lie.

We won't start shutting down our coal for 20 years according to the World Energy Outlook.

[givemebackmycountry]

5. They don't even give a fuck anymore...

Just shove it down our stupid fucking throats.
Next up?

"Keeping you and your God Fearing, Jesus loving, little white bread family warm at night, America's newest fuel! Kerosene!"

[hatrack]

12. "Wood - It's America's Energy!"

"Piles Of Burning Leaves - Keeping America Warm!"

:eyes:

[jacquelope]

6. I knew that was coming.

We're not seeing any surge in calls for alternative energy... nope, we're going back to that clean coal bullshit.

F'in ay.

[kristopher]

16. Surge in calls for clean energy with the ASS-HATS in the nuclear industry flooding all media?

No one can get a word in edgewise because of the ASS-HATS in the nuclear industry flooding all media in a flurry of completely justifiable panic at the thought of how much money they see fleeing their grasp.

Nuclear Industry is made up of a greedy bunch of bastards isn't it?

Have you seen this list? It was originally compiled by a former NRC Commissioner.

The 6 Standard lies of the nuclear industry

1. nuclear power is cheap;
2. learning and new standardized designs solve all past problems;
3. the waste problem is a non-problem, especially if we’d follow the lead of many other nations and “recycle” our spent fuel;
4. climate change makes a renaissance inevitable; 5. there are no other large low-carbon “baseload” alternatives;
6. there’s no particular reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations.

The fact is that the economics have already killed both nuclear and coal. Unlike nuclear power's false claims that their industry could potentially achieve substantial savings with "mass produced reactors" solar and wind actually ARE reaping rapid and significant price reductions as manufacturing ramps up.

[jtrockville]

10. Coal is filthy.

[truebrit71]

11. 'Clean coal harnesses the awesome power of the word 'clean' to make it sound like the cleanest clean

..out there"...

Of course, why would we expect Corporate America to act with anything like class or sensitivity at a time like this..

[hatrack]

13. And did you mention that it has the word "clean" in it? That's so AWESOME!

I love the way they make things clean by saying that they're clean!