Clean Coal

"The Queen sacrifice Gambit"

"Clean coal," he says in the state of the union message. How many people heard that one? The Pres. Is an oil man and the VP holds coal interests, or is the oil industry promoting coal as our alternative fuel of choice, because coal cannot compete with oil for transportation, and cynically amounts to the worst possible choice for CO₂ emissions. Clean coal is an oxymoron. They wash the fuel not the emissions. They can filter the carbon soot from the smoke stack but not the CO₂.

If we generate most of our electricity with coal, it will be difficult to promote electricity as the emission free choice of the future. Oil revenue is threatened by expanded low cost electric energy, especially in automobiles, trucks and trains. Just a small shift to electric motors, versus the internal combustion engine, will severally weaken oil prices, Low cost electric heating may do the same, and especially as solar becomes more efficient and affordable.

Would the oil industry promote such a deleterious option as coal? Would they do so cynically and for their own profit at the cost of the environment? Exxon has not paid the court mandated reparation for the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Their revenue, 40.6 billion for 2007, amounts to almost 2% of our government's annual budget. Do they have the market power to sacrifice themselves to coal in a gambit that wins the game? Is the game chess, monopoly or the environment? I ask you, but then --- people do not see the clouds that blanket the sky, only the muted darkness.