Clean Coal?

photo: old treehugger article on Big Stone II

I watched the debate last night. Both Veep candidates did pretty well, I guess. If you’re keeping score. I heard things I like and things I don’t from both. One thing that intrigued me was the multiple mentions by both candidates of “clean coal.” I’ve of course heard of this future technology. That’s the thing that intrigued me–as far as I can tell (and I know very little about coal power), there is no such thing as clean coal technology, yet. It’s a so-far-unfulfilled promise of the coal energy industry. An idea without any reality yet. But the candidates talked about it like it’s for real. That was interesting to me.

So, if (according to 1Sky, anyway) there is no such thing as clean coal, and coal fired power plants are our biggest contributor to CO2 spewing into the atmosphere, then why keep building more coal plants instead of alternative, clean energy (like wind and solar)?

Or, to get even more radical, what if we stopped using so much energy in the first place. It wouldn’t be so hard or horrible.

Anybody out there know anything more about ‘clean coal?’ Please share in the comments.