Earth Equity News

'No Such Animal as Clean Coal'. Reuters, May 13, 2008. "In a bid to draw voters ahead of Democratic primaries in West Virginia today and Kentucky on May 20, both [Senators Obama and Clinton] are playing up the ascendant role of commercially untested and so far economically nonviable ways of converting America's plentiful coal supplies into [clean] electricity... 'We need some big investments right now in figuring out how to capture and store carbon dioxide from coal,' Clinton [said]... Not to be outdone, Obama's campaign has distributed flyers in Kentucky stating that 'Barack Obama believes in clean Kentucky coal'... Candidates' support for clean coal indicates a tension between their need to bring along delegate-rich coal states... and their global warming platforms. 'There is no such animal as clean coal,' said Brent Blackwelder... [of] Friends of the Earth... 'We need to be looking at getting rid of coal plants'... But 'Big Coal' states are not to be ignored... As the Democratic presidential process comes down to the wire, coal plays prominently in three of the six remaining primaries including Montana on June 3." On Coal, Obama, Treat Them Like Adults. Posted by David Roberts, Grist, May 11, 2008. "West Virginia and Kentucky... [are] the second and third highest coal-producing states... Facing this... what should Obama do? Clinton showed with the gas tax farce that there is no pander to 'hard-working Americans, white Americans' too crass or desperate... Should Obama try to keep up? Should he... [promise] that he'll take care of Big Coal, and Big Coal will take care of them? He's already doing so in Kentucky. Maybe there's another way, though. His response to Clinton's gas tax proposal was to reject it as a Washington gimmick... Why not try the same thing in W.Va. and Ky... by telling the truth... [that,] as president, he would stop the expansion of dirty coal."