Republican War on Clean Coal

Clean Coal

My title," Republican War on Clean Coal" is a little hyperbolic but isn't that how we do things these days? I just read a good article by Paul Bledsoe (Politico) that makes the case for cooperating with China on creating technology for burning coal more cleanly. I will expound further but in order to not bury the lead here is the one thing that caught my eye:

"Many Democrats have become too captive to far left environmental advocates who disingenuously contend that renewable energy alone can easily meet America’s near-term climate, economic and energy imperatives. Meanwhile, climate denial by Republicans has greatly contributed to coal’s collapse. By not coming to terms with coal's emissions and climate change liabilities and by refusing to support climate legislation needed to fund investment in technologies to address them, the GOP has left coal with nowhere to turn, and so every major U.S. coal company has gone bankrupt.

In other words Republicans, who have relentlessly campaigned against "the job killing war on coal" (in Alabama virtually every politician ran on this even though the elected position had no say or influence on environmental policy), could have helped coal more by embracing its polluting nature. 

Just to be clear, I am very skeptical about "clean coal". The whole operation is dirty:  mountain top clearing, dumping wastes into valleys, failure to mitigate as required by law, conditions in the mines (improving I'm told), transportation and storing of coal (coal dust), burning (mercury, CO2, particulate matter etc.), and coal ash disposal. Currently there is no economically feasible technology to burn coal as cleanly as natural gas.

But, coal isn't going away in the US or in world. So if it is going to be burned, it should be burned more cleanly. Republicans would be loath to spend money under the guise of fighting climate change but they might support "saving coal".