I saw an advertisement in the Economist from Hitachi that I thought was very misleading. It looks almost like an article rather than an ad, with a heading of, "Coal's Comeback" followed by, "The True Story of Clean Power in Council Bluffs." The ad notes that coal was formerly a "four-letter word in environmental circles." The ad goes on to say that Hitachi is helping to change that image, starting with a generating unit in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It is true that so-called "clean coal' has fewer emissions than traditional coal-fired power plants, yet I would hardly call it clean power. The ad shows a child fishing right by the smokestacks of the power plant, perhaps to symbolize that coal is the way of the future and to promote the purity of using it for power. The problem is that even IGCC technology, which converts coal to a gas, does not eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, unless this carbon dioxide is somehow injected into the ground. Yet, the latter technology has not been perfected and most clean coal plants do not call for this carbon sequestration. In addition, how can we call coal clean when it requires destructive mining and creates sludge and other solid waste products that need to be disposed of somewhere?

Of course, it is better to use cleaner coal technology than traditional coal technology, in terms of having less pollution emanating from the smokestacks. Yet, this technology should be called "cleaner coal" technology and not "clean coal" technology. In my opinion, the only clean energy technology is that which creates no emissions, including greenhouse gas emissions, and which creates no waste products from energy production. With this, we are back to wind and solar power. Of course, there is some initial pollution created to make the solar panels and the wind turbines. Yet, over time, this pollution can be offset by the years of clean power that result from the wind and sun. Coal may seem like the panacea to some, yet the reality is that it can only be so clean and its polluting nature can never be fully eliminated.