Earth Equity News

The 'Clean Coal' Marketing Machine Keeps Rolling. By Diane Silver, Salon, May 15, 2008. "Maybe you missed the newspaper ads and billboards warning that turning away from coal could mean blackouts, unemployment and higher electric bills. These... variations on the coal-is-great theme are flooding the nation... The [so-called 'Clean Coal' campaign]... has kicked into high gear as prospects for new plants have turned bleak... Coal's message has been carried by an ever-morphing conglomeration of nonprofit organizations that all work out of the same Alexandria, Va., office and use the same staff. The Center for Energy and Economic Development (working 'on behalf of coal's interests') begot Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (promoting coal, but [now] also 'proponents of wind, solar and nuclear'...). The two merged on April 17 to become the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, or 'ACE'... All three... have been funded by the biggest names in coal and related industries... In April, Barack Obama acknowledged a voter sporting one of the industry's hats at a campaign stop in Dunmore, Penn., and then used the industry's own terminology to talk about his support for investing in carbon storage research. In an appearance in Charleston, W.Va., Hillary Clinton also used the industry's own words to pledge her support for doing the same... However, none of [the three presidential candidates] supports a moratorium on building new coal-fired plants. Meanwhile, the Clean Coal marketing machine keeps rolling."