Clean coal supporters digging for gold and legitimacy

Controlling the carbon and chemicals produced by burning goal for energy is the basic premise behind clean coal, but its supporters are struggling to develop legitimacy. Critics have pointed out that pollutants like mercury that are released regularly into the environment and entire geological landscapes are altered from practices like strip mining. Now a forum in New York agrees that clean coal will require a lot more cash before it can become an effective countermeasure.

A nationwide tax in the United States that charged companies based on carbon emissions might provide the kind of investment required. Not surprisingly, the most expensive part of the process is also the most costly to solve.

That cost is primarily driven by capturing the carbon. But driving up the cost of coal makes it almost obsolete as alternative sources like wind and solar energy continue to gain ground and trend downward in price. That puts the coal industry in a difficult situation, where perhaps the best option is to invest heavily in renewable energy.

If the government did enact a carbon emissions tax, it would need to charge about $100 per metric ton of carbon released for clean coal to become viable, and right now that tax hovers around $60-65 per metric ton.

Even so, the federal government may be open to supporting the clean coal movement in other ways, “Energy Secretary Steven Chu suggested recently that the FutureGen project — a demonstration plant for carbon capture and storage that was scuttled by the Bush administration because it was regarded as too costly — could be revived,” according to the New York Times.

Burning coal is not a sustainable enterprise because it relies on a finite energy source backed with pollutants. Yes, it’s cheap, and it has played a critical role in powering nations during their developing years. Now it’s time for us to transition to something greener.