This NPR story on clean coal is astounding. Pardon the long post, but I had to transcribe several parts of it so you wouldn't think I'm making it up.
The story begins with Al Gore making (and repeating several times) a single point: clean coal -- insofar as that means coal power generation that has sequestered 90+ percent of its greenhouse gas emissions -- doesn't exist. There isn't a power plant in the country that fits that definition. There aren't even any large-scale pilot projects.
Simple, right?
Then comes Joe Lucas, vice president of communications for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), who might as well be whistling and twirling his bowler hat. He's such an obvious huckster that at some points NPR's Robert Siegel can barely keep from laughing. It's old-fashioned street theater, showing you the con and charming you into nodding along anyway. You kind of have to give him style points.
Siegel's trying to get him to admit Gore's point: that clean coal -- coal that emits hardly any greenhouse gases -- doesn't exist. Turns out, it all depends on what the meaning of is clean is, says Lucas:
"Clean coal" is a term of art that's been around for over 30 years.
See? He shows you the con right up front. The "art" here, of course, is propaganda. He says flat out that clean coal is an "evolutionary term" -- it's just the name they give to whatever they've got going at the time. Coal has always been clean, because it has always been slightly cleaner than before. You are feeling sleepy ...
This is the bit that made me laugh out loud:
There is not that plant [i.e., a coal plant that sequesters its CO2 emissions]. That is not what clean coal is today. "Clean coal" is an evolutionary term, just like "medical technology." Thirty years ago when we didn't have MRI machines, we didn't say that we didn't have medical technology. But now we have medical technology that includes MRI machines. So our understanding of what is medical technology has evolved.
Robert Siegel, fairly agape at the shamelessness, notes with raised eyebrow that the analogy is "a bit imperfect here." Later he tries again: this stuff, coal with sequestration, isn't here, right?
Witness:
Somebody asked me that question over a year ago, about clean coal. And I said, I learned a long time ago, when my grandmother told me to go clean my room, that people's value judgment of what was clean was different. I thought I did a good job of cleaning my room only to find out that her definition was different.
Siegel, now fully agape, asks him about the very clear definition laid out in the McKinsey report: 90+ percent CO2 sequestration. Lucas:
That's what they described. When I look at what a majority of Americans say is clean coal, the fact that we're using technology today to reduce the emission of hazardous air pollutants, and the fact that we will be able to over the next ten years to begin to bring technologies into the marketplace to capture and store carbon, that's what the American people believe that clean coal is.
What we will be able to do is what the American people believe it is. Sleeepy ...
I guess only liberal academic pinheads define "clean coal" the way McKinsey does, the way the media does, the way the industry itself does when begging for taxpayer handouts. Real Americans believe the industry snow job that 10 more years of unabated CO2 emissions is "clean." Possibly because the industry spent a quarter-billion dollars just this year convincing them.
Reality, however, is stubborn. When coal was first used to generate electricity at the turn of the 20th century, power plants sequestered none of their greenhouse gas emissions. Today, after over a century of "evolution," coal plants sequester none of their greenhouse gas emissions. For the next decade, at least, coal plants will sequester none of their greenhouse gas emissions.
By then our goose will be cooked. That's why James Hansen says shutting down dirty coal plants is the sine qua non of serious climate policy. At a very minimum, no new dirty coal plants can be built. The existing fleet of coal plants must be retrofit for 90+ percent carbon sequestration or shut down in the next 20-40 years. That's the only way we'll meet the emission goals laid out in Obama's plan.
I feel a little bad for Lucas -- the faux-populist up-is-downism he's so artlessly selling would have been more at home in the Bush Era. These days people seem, if only slightly, less inclined to blow smoke up their own posteriors. Reality may be back in vogue.
Comments
View as Flat
Kit Stolz Posted 5:13 am
05 Dec 2008
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jeffgreen11 Posted 11:04 am
05 Dec 2008
This is how solid the science is. The case has been made very well and there's nowhere for them to turn to. This is the last stand without admitting defeat. How much longer this goes on, who knows, but I think we are in the last stage of denial to get their way with electric power people. There may be quite a bit more to come down the road.
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johnthetreehugger Posted 1:54 am
06 Dec 2008
Thanks Al, your home state is suffering the depredations of strip mining and you can't mention that?
and even if someone miraculously invents sequestration technology tomorrow...
the complete and utter devestation wrought by mountaintop removal and strip mining means that coal will never be clean.
thanks for the great take on it tho, Grist. i heard the piece, got pissed, wrote NPR and the Reality Coalition. y'all made me chuckle. Thanks.
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Wolfy Posted 9:26 am
06 Dec 2008
Wow, quite a show! In Ring 2 is The Big Three. Watch how they tap-dance around congressional inquiry and make grand, audacious (and false) promises. We'll all be driving cars that run on air, last forever, and cost $25.
And in Ring 3 is Big Ag; they're making more money than dirt but they still need you to pay them not to plant crops. Watch how they parade around holding out their empty pockets.
What a circus big coal/three/ag has made of our legislative bodies. W and his cronies have sure made a mess of a already screwed-up system. Lets hope Obama can tackle the Big Congressional Corporations and take our country back!
Most times for evil to win it doesn't take a large, horrible event; it just takes a lot of people each doing just a little bad.
AOOOOOOooooooooo.........
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vakibs Posted 12:06 am
07 Dec 2008
That's what they described. When I look at what a majority of Americans say is clean coal, the fact that we're using technology today to reduce the emission of hazardous air pollutants, and the fact that we will be able to over the next ten years to begin to bring technologies into the marketplace to capture and store carbon, that's what the American people believe that clean coal is.
Nationalistic sentiment never fails to rouse emotions from deep underneath. Spin-doctors like ACCCE are maximizing the use of this sentiment, to delay the shutting down of coal plants.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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mwildfire Posted 1:28 am
07 Dec 2008
The other game here is the word "sequestration". It is actually a magic word, and here I gave it to you for free. All you have to do is wave that magic wand, or word, around and the carbon dioxide emitted by coal goes away! Or so the industry hopes. There is little evidence of anyone actually TRYING sequestration, because it's obviously impractical and too expensive to do on the scale needed. But the hope is that enough steer manure spread all over the media, together with enough payoffs to politicians, will enable them to get a bunch of plants built before they are stopped, and then these plants will be grandfathered like most of the 1700 coal-fired plants still spewing the OTHER pollutants Lucas talked about. I notice they bankrolled both conventions, and election coverage--wonder if they're contributing to the inaugural festivies. So far it looks like Obama's appointments signal no change to a foreign policy based on killing and bombing somebody somewhere every day of every year, and his economic advisor appointments signal economic policy based on privileging the "needs" of the privileged. But his appointments in the environmental realm look much more promising--and that's bad news for King Coal.
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