Cure the common coal
EVERYTHING about the coal industry - from the deaths of miners underground to the blasting off of mountaintops to expose hidden seams - seems incompatible with the goal of generating power without adding to global warming. Yet coal will remain part of the nation's energy mix. And the United States has fallen behind in developing cleaner coal technologies.
Converting coal to gas holds some promise of cleaner generation, but the United States has not built a single coal-to-gas plant since 2002. The Bush administration launched the FutureGen program in 2003 to develop low-pollution coal-fired power plants that can capture carbon dioxide emissions and bury them deep into the earth. Mattoon, Ill., was selected for the first plant, but the administration backed out, after costs that had been estimated at $950 million began to balloon.
New Energy Secretary Steven Chu has raised hopes of reviving the project, telling a Senate committee in March that without cleaner-coal technology, "the environmental risk is incredible. China, India, and the United States will not turn [their] back on coal. So we've got to get it right." But he also noted the project's costs have kept rising - now to an estimated $2.3 billion. Such costs are troubling, he said, because the United States needs "a portfolio of projects" for clean energy.
But FutureGen's troubles shouldn't paralyze the government's efforts, because potential economic competitors are pushing forward. According to the Gasification Technologies Council, China has added 29 new coal-to-gas plants since 2004.
Chu needs to bring FutureGen into the present - or identify some other project that will do more to revolutionize coal. If the country is not going to turn its back on coal, it cannot turn its back on cleaning it up. 