I don't love coal at all. Not one bit. My hope level just declined three base points.

Surprise, no matter who wins this election, we will continue to have corporate based policies that will assure our demise.

Do we at least get bread with this circus?

If coal was used to make energy for facilities that build wind turbines and solar panels and that's all... I could "like" it, as long as I knew we were headed straight for a time when the turbines/panels would turn on and the coal would turn off...

Is that too PollyAnna of me?

Considering the massive amount of infrastructure already in place for coal extraction, transportation, and burning, it's unrealistic to suggest that the next president will flip a switch and end coal as a component of our energy mix.

There are a lot of reasons for environmentalists to hate coal.  Ecosystems and natural hydrological systems are ruined by mountaintop removal, coal-burning power plants emit dangerous levels of mercury and other pollutants, and of course, coal is one of the top contributors to global warming.

But if environmentalists are going to have any credibility on the seriousness of global warming, we can't use carbon emissions as a backdoor to attacking coal because we don't like it for other reasons.

From everything I've read on Grist and elsewhere, I doubt that carbon sequestration is technically and economically feasible.  But we don't know, because nobody has actually built a CCS coal plant.  For all the lip-service that carbon sequestration has received and all the hope that some politicians have pinned on it, I don't think it's a bad idea to try it out and see how it works.  But the fights against mountaintop removal and mercury emissions should be fought on their own merits.