Jim Motavalli at E/The Environmental Magazine writes about "The Myth of Clean Coal." There is one view that strong coal advocates like West Virginia's own Rep. Nick Rahall (WV-03) promotes.
Can coal be clean? Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV), who has proposed legislation to subsidize "clean coal," says it can. He thinks the answer to foreign oil dependence is right here at home, buried in West Virginia's ancient mountains. He envisions $35-a-barrel oil produced from a homegrown resource: abundant coal. With very little prompting, Rahall will tell you that with coal-to-liquid technology we can "revolutionize our way to a new energy era."
Greenhouse gas emissions won't be a problem, he says, because the new plants Rahall's legislation envisions would sequester the carbon dioxide (CO2) so it never reaches the atmosphere. The resulting liquid fuel, he says, will be cleaner than required by the Environmental Protection Agency's strong Tier II standards.
And, then there is the more scientifically sound view that others promote.
Alas, the dirty secret is that "clean coal" is anything but. The process involves heating coal to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and mixing it with water to produce a gas, then converting the gas into diesel fuel. Although the industry-sponsored Coal-to-Liquids Coalition says that CO2 emissions from the entire production cycle of liquid coal are "equal to, or slightly below, those of conventional petroleum-derived fuels," its claims are based on a single federal study, now six years old.
Jim Presswood, federal energy advocate of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says, "Liquid CO2 emissions are twice as much as emissions from conventional petroleum-derived fuels." He says that even if CO2 emissions are sequestered as part of the process, at best liquid coal would be 12 percent worse than the gasoline equivalent. As some environmentalists have put it, liquid coal can turn any hybrid Prius into a Hummer.
Of course, any discussion of "clean" coal is incomplete without mention of the social, ecological, and environmental costs of coal mining.
The flipside of the coal lobby's empty promises and ready cash (the Bush campaign secured $530,560 from coal companies and electric utilities in the 2000 cycle, reports EarthJustice) is the harsh reality of mountaintop removal mining. This now-standard practice in the Southeast coalfields is efficient only in delivering coal companies windfall profits. It has left an incalculable toll in shattered lives, permanently destroyed environments and polluted groundwater.
I agree with Rep. Rahall on many issues -- he's been great when it comes to Iraq, for example -- but he risks undermining his credibility if he continues to serve as an uncritical booster of all things coal. |
