is an oxymoron.

Yes, you can in fact "clean" the greenhouse burden contaminants out of any hydrocarbon fuel stock -- if you're willing to negate the net BTU utility.

...The sooner we can start on nuclear power, the clean killer! Why deal with all that smokey, stinky coal when we can die clean, with invisible, odorless radiation? Uncle Atom always will be there for us!

Although I'm voting democrat this election year, I continue to be frustrated by the wackiness displayed by democrats and republicans on this issue.

The repubs say there's no such thing as global warming (well, OK yesterday they admitted it)

Democrats bitch about it but resist every option that (to me) makes sense.

I'm not an expert but I'm not opposed to nuclear power whatsoever. But damn if anyone can mention it in a leftie crowd without getting the joo-joo eye. I'm in favor of tapping that oil off our coasts (and I live in FL) but damn if i can say that in a room full of people worried about the coral reef.

Well, WTF are we going to do about this oil and energy problem? Build 100 million acres of solar panels? Turn the entire state of Kansas in to a wind turbine center?

We will need a combination of ALL these things PLUS strong aggressive development of new things that present us with opportunities to replace less efficient or more harmful methodologies. I agree with Obama that we will have to make aggressive investments. But we need to also get moving along. If Henry Ford had waiting until he could put an anti-lock brake on the cars he was planning to pump out, he might never have even tried manufacturing cars at all.

We have to do SOMETHING and we need to do it rather quickly.

Nowhere in this article is it mentioned that the so-called "clean coal" being produced comes from literally blasting the tops off of entire mountains in West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Virginia. Not content with the destructive, polluting practice of digging deeper and deeper holes, all the while threatening the lives of everyone who works in the mines, the coal companies began long ago with first "strip mining" the soil off the very tops of the mountains and then plain blowing the mountains into rubble.

Then they take the rubble, throw it down into the gulch next to what used to be a mountain, on top of what once was a clear stream, and make a water containment dike out of the former mountaintop. Water that once ran free--maybe for generations of people who lived in that gulch, the only source of drinking water--now is held captive in this containment area and used to wash the coal so it isn't so dusty. The water, which turns completely black and foul, then remains held--millions of gallons of it--precariously above the community below, held back only by a pile of loose rubble that could (and sometimes does) break through. THAT, my friends, is "clean coal".

How do I know? Well, for one, I was a control systems design engineer for General Electric in Pennsylvania, and I left the company flat out when they told me my next assignment would be to design control systems for this travesty.

The people of this region and some of the most beautiful land in the world are being, once again, terribly exploited so the rest of us can imagine ourselves to be "green" and "clean".

Can we just cover the world with solar panels? Well, there are solar roof tiles, nanotech solar paint, and other solar products being developed right now that only require some strong government level investment to bring to market--we have covered the world with houses and other buildings. Let's now cover those buildings with solar and make them truly worth their space.

Algae is being developed that can provide large amounts of biofuel in relatively small space with little energy invested. Fibers can be made from bamboo, hemp, and other fast growing plants rather than destroying forests (as is happening in the Pacific Northwest where I live) or using oil.

There are MANY options--all it takes is some vision. But there is nothing "clean" about coal.

See my blog at bgladd.blogspot.com, specifically "0.0143%"

Great blog! And to hit on two of your topics--yes, I am already investing (admittedly tiny amounts, but it's what I can afford) in solar, biofuels (good ones-not ethanol), and wave generation. I think wave generation is a very promising source of electrical energy for any region near the large coastal regions of our country--and carry with them the potential for combining with fishing preserves where salmon and other important sea life can rejuvenate their numbers.

I also just have to laugh at the concept that we "cannot create more than ___% of our energy needs through alternative energy within the next 30 years". As someone who began life when an entire nation was trying desperately to power three men to the moon with computing power less than a basic cell phone of today--which took multiple air-conditioned rooms to house, I have a very difficult time with naysayers telling us what we cannot possibly do if we have the will and the government leadership.

Yes We Can!

I'm suspicious that the coal industry needs a "clean coal" marketing campaign. What are they asking for in the commercials? If they're pretending coal is already clean that's obviously a lie. However, no one knows if any clean coal technology will work, anymore than we know if solar will work. Every energy source has technical challenges, malign side effects, and uncertainly about who well it will ever work. That's why nothing can be written off at this point. Even nuclear can be considered if they solve the problem of hardening plants against crashing airplanes (there's one where I'm a wee bit skeptical). In the meantime, we have to accept somethings about coal. Coal plants are incredibly common already. The dirty technology is proven and cheap. Coal is common and cheap. Poor countries in urgent need of power are going to build coal plants no matter how filthy they are. If someone could come up with affordable and feasible clean coal, they could sell the technology all over the planet. If we do the research, it could be us. It could have been us that built wind technology instead Denmark, and instead McCain made his climate change speech at a Danish wind turbine plant rather than an American one --- because there aren't American ones. Of course, he voted consistently against research into alternative technologies. Let's not do that with any technology yet.