Recently I have been a bit confounded by the term “clean coal.” This is the coal industry’s moniker to capture C02 emissions while ensuring its future as a viable energy source. The “clean” is our future, “coal” our past. I am struck both by the clever collision of these seeming opposites and the hope that we are so ingenious as to marry and resolve this conundrum. Equally so, I am fascinated by the marketing and PR engine that is delivering this message to the populace.

In a Season 3 episode of Mad Men, Don Draper offers a solution to the angry cries coming from the citizenry regarding the demolition of Penn Station: "If you do not like what is being said, change the conversation." In the case on coal, I present you with America’s Power Army, the thinly veiled voice of “clean coal.” This supposed army is the coal lobby’s “online community for concerned citizens” masquerading as a legitimate dialogue on energy independence. Its sister-site, americaspower. org, otherwise known as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, tries to make a persuasive case for coal’s future, but in my opinion fails. For starters, the main graphic on the web page is a lump of black coal with an orange electrical cord plugged into it. This certainly is not my idea of a sustainable image! On the same page are statistics citing an 88.5 percent reduction in particulate matter since the 1970s. Their supporting facts read more like forward-looking statements that portend progress, such as: “There is over $12 billion in clean coal research underway right now in 43 states—even ones not normally associated with coal production.” All things considered, if not for the Clean Air Act of 1970, can coal claim anything clean?

Coal accounts for half of the electricity generated in the U.S., and is our cheapest source of power. The Obama administration stands behind it as a viable energy source, but with innovative rhetoric that suggests it is a necessary evil. Although I buy into the notion that to achieve a new energy paradigm we must transition our reliance from one technology to another, I am a bit puzzled why, in this era of climate change, we would choose coal for anything in the future. It is destructive to the landscape, may end up using more power to make it “clean,” kills miners on a regular basis, and although cheap and plentiful today, it is not a renewable resource. We will not achieve “clean coal” but we can achieve clean, smart and renewable technologies in our energy future. Yes, we need jobs and, yes, power needs to be affordable. But it is bolder to imagine a new, truly clean energy source instead of just rebranding.

As America’s Power Army states, new technologies are being developed for coal. “Dreaming the Impossible Dream,” an op-ed piece in The New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman, provides an optimistic viewpoint on some smart thinking for coal’s nasty byproducts. He writes of a company, Calera, which has pioneered a process of combining C02 emissions with seawater to produce building materials. “If this can scale, it would eliminate the need for expensive carbon-sequestration facilities planned to be built alongside coal-fired power plants—and it might actually make the heretofore specious notion of ‘clean coal’ a possibility.” Really? Don’t black lung, mountaintop removal, highly explosive gases, and reserves that will only last the next 150 years still make a better case for “dirty dangerous dead-end coal?” Calera definitely has some cool technology and very smart people working on this Band-Aid for coal, but just imagine what these minds could be working on with the time and money not wasted by misguided corporate interests and crafty sloganeers.

The futurist idea that real progress only happens once a generation dies is a morbid, if hopeful, reminder of what society can and will achieve over time. Today our world is changing faster than ever before and in unprecedented ways. The progress we once waited patiently for now requires a new model, not a renovation. Unlike the pomp and circumstance of the stately structures and grand arrivals of our past, we now embrace speed and efficiency. Whether we can deem the ugly as beautiful or vice versa is not the point, but how we spend our energy and the earth’s energy right now is a conversation worth having.

Natural Resources Defense Council Spoof on America’s Power Army:

www.americascoalpower.org

Join the conversation at:

www.citizenscoalcouncil.org
www.sierraclub.org/coal