Clean Coal? Myth or Reality

Clean coal is a term that typically means capturing carbon emissions from burning coal and storing it underground. It was an idea inspired from the former president to George W. Bush when he tried to switch to a cleaner coal power initiative. The idea was for coal to make hydrogen and electricity whilst also capturing carbon dioxide and burying it underground.The US claims to have over 250 years worth of coal still, but that would have major impacts as we’re at a point in time where the next few years can determine the probability of permanent damage to the environment. Therefore “clean coal” cannot truly be clean because of the production process and business practices and should be considered an impossible reality.

According to the World Nuclear Association “Attempting to use coal without adding to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is a major technological challenge. The greatest challenge is bringing the cost of this down sufficiently for 'clean coal' to compete with nuclear power,” also stating that after this process the coal can typically lose 20% of the energy it can produce. The process to clean coal has too many disadvantages such as being too costly and energy intensive for it to be considered an alternative. When so much of the world relies on coal already with 38% of the world's electricity generated from coal and 70% of our world's steel production, trying to switch coal to this method would have a huge impact on the world.

Most coal companies like to advertise about ”Clean coal” claiming that they’ve made a commitment to be clean without ever showing proof of their progress. From demonstrations in data from the past it was concluded that the first plant wouldn’t be using the “carbon capture and storage” till 2017. In 2017 this became true under the Trump administration making the plant ’Petra Nova’ claiming to “remove carbon dioxide from coal, but due to the drop in oil and gas prices in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic the plant shut down just before 4 years of running as it wasn't worth the cost of extracting the carbon dioxide” (Taft, 2021). The result of this process has shown to be less than promising and nowadays renewable energies can be used at a better efficiency and less costly than trying to rely on “cleaning coal.”

The term “clean coal” is just a hoax used by gas companies and politicians to try and compete with renewable energies such as solar and wind energy. There are currently no power plants as of now in the US that try to burn coal and make it clean, making any claims by US coal companies of “clean coal” a fallacy only trying to gain money from the government and other companies to “prove” such an idea exists. After the failure of the Petra Nova compaines should’ve realized that the only way to have a clean, non-pollutant souce of energy is that renewable energies must be used instead.

Work Cited:

World, Nuclear Association. “Clean Coal' Technologies, Carbon Capture & Sequestration.” Clean Coal Technologies | Carbon Capture and Storage | CCS - World Nuclear Association, 2016, https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/clean-coal-technologies.aspx.

Taft, Molly. “The Only Carbon Coal Capture Plant in the U.S. Just Closed.” Gizmodo, Gizmodo, 4 Feb. 2021, https://gizmodo.com/the-only-carbon-capture-plant-in-the-u-s-just-closed-1846177778.