Can fossil fuels become clean energy?

There is a fine line which is often blurred when people discuss clean energy. Some “energy“ spokespersons say it’s clean when it is burned at the power plant, reactor, or refinery if it gives off little to no air pollution, such as greenhouse gases (GHG) leading to global warming, or the release of chemicals harmful to the environment like sulfur dioxide, mercury, lead, dioxins, carcinogens or other pollutants harmful to humans.

However, everything is interconnected, just like our homes are connected to an electrical grid. All energy is created by a resource and the question as to whether something is “truly” clean energy has more to do with the following:
The extraction of the resource and its environmental impacts, transportation energy use and associated pollution, the energy used to produce it into a viable product, and the energy and resources to create infrastructure (refinery, power plant, generator, reactor) to produce the energy. Finally, this includes any harmful waste that remains once the energy has been exhausted from the resource. Therefore it goes beyond the GHG burned strictly at the plant and includes the GHG produced everywhere along the route to its end destination.

Therefore clean energy is not really an appropriate term, because all energy for modern day living requires resources, transportation, and infrastructure. The more appropriate term is to call it “green energy”. The definition of green energy is energy produced using a low carbon footprint and less pollution from its emergence to its disposal.

Here’s an outline of fossil fuel energy resources used in Colorado. Which ones are truly clean and green, or more accurately, green and low pollution? Are there any that fit this definition?

Examiner