How do you produce clean energy from dirty coal?

In one ad, people in white coats gaze intently at test tubes as the narrator intones: “We’re committed to a future in which our most abundant fuel, coal, generates our electricity with even lower emissions.”

In the other ad, directed by the famed Coen brothers, a smarmy pitchman offers a family a “clean-coal” room deodorizer, which leaves them coughing in a smog-filled home. “In reality, there’s no such thing as clean coal,” reads the tagline at the end.
Two powerful lobbies are spending millions to influence public perception and so shape the future of America’s energy and environmental policies. The winner will resolve one of the principal contradictions of Barack Obama’s agenda.

The President wants to wean the United States from its reliance on imported oil. He also wants to reduce America’s greenhouse-gas emissions. The two don’t square.

Coal-fired generation plants produce half the electricity Americans use. And “there is not a credible economic forecast that does not expect coal use to grow,” believes Joe Lucas, communications vice-president for America’s Power, which produced the pro-coal ad.

The President stresses that all domestically produced sources of energy should be encouraged, including wind, solar, nuclear and biofuels. Yet for now, at least, the paradox remains. If America is to contribute to the struggle to reduce global warming, then it must greatly reduce its reliance on dirty coal. But if it is to wean itself from its addiction to foreign oil, then it must turn to domestic sources.

And for the foreseeable future, dirty coal will be part of the mix.

Globe and Mail