NY Times Lead Story: So Much for "Clean Coal"

...it has become clear in recent months that the nation's effort to develop the technique is lagging badly.

In January, the government canceled its support for what was supposed to be a showcase project, a plant at a carefully chosen site in Illinois where there was coal, access to the power grid, and soil underfoot that backers said could hold the carbon dioxide for eons.

Perhaps worse, in the last few months, utility projects in Florida, West Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota and Washington State that would have made it easier to capture carbon dioxide have all been canceled or thrown into regulatory limbo.

[...]

"It's a total mess," said Daniel M. Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

In short, "clean coal" is on life support right now.  Why should we care?  Because, as the NY Times article points out, building "the next generation of coal plants using existing technology" -- like Dominion's proposed Wise County as currently configured -- will "ensure that vast amounts of global warming gases would be pumped into the atmosphere for decades."  

If "clean coal" won't work, what are the other options for the nation's energy future?  First and foremost, we need a massive push for energy efficiency -- using significantly less energy per unit of economic output.  This is, by far and away, the lowest of "low hanging fruit" in the energy world, as it is far cheaper to save a watt of energy than to produce a new one.  Second, we need to develop promising renewable energy sources like wind (onshore and offshore), tidal, wave, deep geothermal, and solar (both PV and concentrated thermal). Finally, we need to consider nuclear power as an option, as it emits no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Every day that goes by that we don't start the shift to a new energy economy is a lost opportunity, environmentally and economically. What are we waiting for? Certainly not "clean coal."

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