The clean coal that may not be in the U.S.'s energy future

Posted Jun 3rd 2008 5:21PM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Other Issues, Commodities, Oil

Clean coal has hit speed bump on the path to the nation's cleaner energy future.

The United States Government has canceled support for a clean coal demonstration project after the project's development costs nearly doubled, to $1.8 billion, citing the need to limit taxpayer exposure, according to a New York Times report.

Further, more than a decade into the research process, it remains an unanswered question whether the clean coal technology -- capturing and injecting carbon dioxide back into the ground -- can be executed in a safe and cost-effective manner.

Among other hurdles, scientists need to determine which soil formations are most environmentally appropriate for holding and organically processing the carbon dioxide, and that don't contain the risk of dioxide bubbling back to the surface, or polluting ground water.

Energy Analysis: It would be a setback for the nation's clean energy goal if clean coal technology is delayed or shelved. Natural gas and nuclear would be the two other primary electric power generation methods for major utility companies. Natural gas could provide perhaps 40% of the nation's electric power needs; nuclear, perhaps 35%, but the later is unlikely to be utilized until the nuclear waste treatment and storage issue has been resolved. (Environmentally-conscious France has found a way to effectively treat large amounts of nuclear waste; somehow, the United States has not.) Hence, the onus is on public and private researchers to discover the method that releases coal's energy without pollution and with carbon dioxide captured.

Tags: clean coal, climate change, coal, energy crisis, energy policy, global warming, greenhouse gases, inthenews, natural gas, nuclear power, nuclear waste treatment, nulcear waste, oil, oil prices, oil shock, U.S. Department of Energy