The truth about clean coal

September 24th was a bad day for Joe Biden. In less than 24 hours, he negated his own campaign's ads, claimed FDR was both president in 1929 and went on (chronologically impossible) television to lead America through it, and presented a schizophrenic position on coal energy. On coal, Biden said,

No coal plants here in America... Build them, if [The Chinese] are going to build them, over there. Make them clean.

[snip]

We’re not supporting clean coal.

Quick to jump on this new weakness, the McCain campaign formed the Coalition to Protect Coal Jobs. According to the campaign, the coalition

will spread the message about the importance of clean coal technology and the advantages of tapping the country's vast coal reserves. The group will also speak out to protect critical coal jobs when they come under attack from the most anti-American energy ticket in history.

Regardless of the impact of coal, this was a completely ridiculous move on Biden's part. Not only is he contradicting both he and Obama's position on clean coal, but this might bury the Dems in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia; states Biden was brought on to deliver for his ticket.

The BBC offers a crash course in the technology.

However, clean coal has detractors who don't have a perpetually surprised look on their faces. Greenpeace is probably the most prominent in the movement against clean coal. They offer a 5-point manifesto against the technology.

1. Clean coal cannot deliver in time to avoid dangerous climate change

If time was a factor, then Greenpeace could not, in good conscience, support any of the renewable sources of energy traditionally supported by environmental groups. The inrastructure currently in place for coal extraction coupled with the vast domestic resources make clean coal far more conducive to the urgency of possible climate change.

2. Clean coal wastes energy

This is a legitimate grievance. However, like all new forms of technology, this is constantly being improved. Greenpeace is not concerned with wasted energy and its carbon impact for fuel cells or recycling plants

3. Storing carbon underground is risky

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can reduce carbon emissions by up to 90%. Meanwhile, the technology of storing CO2 has gotten to a point where the threat of its leakage is virtually nonexistent. When the carbon emissions are almost eliminated and the risk is nearly irrelevant, it should be considered a viable technology and its storage is demonstrably safe.

4. Clean coal is expensive

This is a valid point. Clean coal, like all new sources of energy, is expensive. The same can be said for virtually all the sources of energy that Greenpeace and other more idealistic environmental groups extol. The advantage of clean coal is that significant infrastructure already exists for the extraction and production of coal.

5. Clean coal carries significant liability risks

There's no doubt that coal mining is at times a dangerous activity and there must be protections for the employees who put themselves at risk each time they enter a mine. However, it's biazarre to argue that by eliminating coal as an option is somehow helpful to them.

At the heart of it, Greenpeace's points are not environmentally-driven, they are economically-driven. They know that all of the immediate environmental risks associated with coal have been all but eliminated. Strip mining, for instance, is an ugly practice in which dynamite is used to literally detonate chunks of mountaintops in order to extract coal in the aftermath. But both candidates have voiced their opposition to this and other intrusive coal extraction methods.