Before going off to graduate school, I worked in the energy industry. (You can check what I did on my Linkedin.com profile.) Now, I am in the unique position to offer an educated opinion on “Clean Coal Technology.”
So, here’s the deal with “clean coal.” In my personal opinion, it should really be called “cleaner coal.” From a technological standpoint, it’s better than current coal burning power plants. There are fewer noxious gasses emissions and as for carbon emissions the issue is a little more complex.
If money were no object – yeah, go with me on this – the efficiency of the best “clean coal” plant could release a substantially smaller amount of carbon emissions for the amount of power generated. So, there are still emissions in most technological cases. Since I have been out of the industry for two years now, I cannot say for certain that there are better plans floating around.
Nevertheless, it could be easy to call the current communications on “clean coal” green-washing.
To be continued…
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