Green Options

Their global disinformation campaigns designed to keep world populations ignorant about the danger of climate change have not endeared the fossil industry to the rest of us. The refusal to deal with the facts about the danger to humanity that global warming poses makes it easy to also dismiss their lies about “clean coal”.

Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence that recent serious attempts at research and development into trying to make coal clean should be taken seriously, and not disregarded as simply more lies to be automatically dismissed.

If energy could be extracted from coal without mining it while reducing its carbon dioxide emissions 75%, then that is R&D worth following, along with all the new developments in clean renewable energy.

Research from a new study from the Clean Air Task Force has led to a project just begun this summer in the Alberta oil sands by Swan Hills Synfuels to try just that.

Environmental groups and food producers oppose the Renewable Fuels Association’s requests for support from the stimulus package that includes $1 billion to finance current operations and a $50 billion federal loan guarantee, as well as job tax credits.

The Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Working Group, Friends of Earth, and the Network for New Energy Choices released a statement today saying that federal government subsidies and mandates for corn-based ethanol produce potentially catastrophic consequences to the environment, and have no payback to taxpayers in terms of alleviating global warming effects, providing for energy security, or even simply reducing the cost of driving. The group’s stance:

“With evidence mounting that biofuels are worsening global warming and harming water quality and wildlife habitat, it makes no sense for the federal government to lavish billions more on an industry already flush with government assistance. It is time for ethanol to stand on its own.”