They say this technology is the answer to reducing carbon emissions, and while we wait for it to be developed, they say we should just go ahead and keep on burning dirty coal and building new dirty coal plants.

But when it comes to actually investing in this technology, two cents is all the coal industry is willing to give, literally.

According to a recent “60 Minutes” report and an analysis by The Center for American Progress, the coal industry’s investment in CCS technology amounts to a paltry two cents on every dollar of profit — or less.

“60 Minutes” interviewed Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, a major producer of coal power:

Asked how much Duke Energy has invested in carbon sequestration technology so far,” Rogers said, “We have not invested any dollars in the technology, per say. We have spent a lot of time and money reviewing and analyzing the various technologies.”

The Center for American Progress analyzed investments by all 48 of the American Association for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) member companies, including Duke, finding:

Like Duke, ACCCE’s other member companies are much more committed to the idea of clean coal than investing to make it a reality—as their research budgets demonstrate. An analysis of their investments found that they spent less than two cents in research on “clean coal” for every $1 of profit.

This year, ACCCE is gearing up to spend an incredible $40 million on ads and PR selling the idea of carbon capture to the American people.

Why is ACCCE spending so much money to sell the idea of a product that doesn’t exist and that they’re not even willing to truly invest in?

It’s all part of the clean coal smoke screen, to keep us burning dirty coal for as long as possible. Of course, if ACCCE has a different answer, we’d love to hear their two cents.

The energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said the new policy balanced three challenges: the need to ensure the security of the UK’s energy supply, the need to build a low-carbon economy and the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Miliband imposed a new requirement that any new coal plant would be forced to demonstrate CCS from the start, with emissions equivalent to 300MW being trapped. He abandoned a previous proposal of allowing plants to be ‘CCS-ready’

“The era of new unabated coal has come to an end,” he said.

The American coal industry insists they are committed to CCS, but in Reality this is exactly the type of progress they have been fighting against. For all their talk about new, clean technology, not a single power-plant in America — or the UK — actually captures and stores it’s carbon pollution.

And despite increasing profits, the coal industry has yet to make a significant investment to develop the technology needed to actually make coal clean.

Instead, groups like ACCCE spend $45 million a year to keep talking about the new technology they haven’t yet demonstrated, perpetuate misleading information about the devastating impact of continuing to burn dirty coal, lobby Congress to block clean energy legislation, and fight to continue building new dirty coal plants — about which the the Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just said “We may not need any, ever.”

If ever there was an opportunity to be part of the solution, and actively play a part in promoting solutions to the climate crisis, this is it. Now that the UK has said a definitive “no” to new, dirty coal plants, it’s time for the coal industry to hear “London calling” — and answer.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that for the first time in the United States will regulate the gases blamed for global warming.

The E.P.A. said the science supporting its ‘endangerment’ finding was “compelling and overwhelming.” The ruling triggers a 60-day comment period before any proposed regulations governing emissions of greenhouse gases are published.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said: “This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations. Fortunately, it follows President Obama’s call for a low-carbon economy and strong leadership in Congress on clean energy and climate legislation.”

This finding makes official what we already knew: the coal industry’s claims to already be “clean” or “77% cleaner” are a complete farce, because these claims completely ignore industry carbon dioxide emissions, which are now recognized as a dangerous pollutant.

The coal industry hasn’t reduced their CO₂ emissions at all. And until they can safely capture and store these emissions, any claims that coal is “clean” are now — according to both reality AND the U.S. Government — complete lies. We can only hope that ACCCE — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — will soon be “scrubbing” all mention of “clean” from their website and name.

One of the industry’s current distortions is the Green Jobs Bogeyman — that somehow massive new investments in clean energy won’t result in tremendous new job growth. Riiiiight.

In a recent blog post, the coal industry cites a dubious Spanish study, (its details, methods and the author’s objectivity — including his links to Exxon Mobile — were all called into question by the Wall Street Journal,) to scare us into thinking WHAT IF these new investments don’t produce new jobs and lower energy prices. MAYBE we should just keep on burning dirty coal and not try to make any new progress.

Here’s the Reality:

• Clean energy is one of the few bright spots in our economy. Growth in clean energy is already getting Americans back to work.

• A recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists finds that the direct benefits of increasing renewable energy production to 25% by 2050 will include hundreds of thousands of new jobs and $64.3 billion in lower energy bills.

• The wind, sun and other renewable sources are free and limitless.

• Our current system leaves coal unaccountable for the catastrophically high costs of its global warming pollution and leaves us, not the coal industry, to pay for those costs.

There’s nothing scary about an economic recovery powered by truly clean energy, so the coal industry has to manufacture doubt and fear. This type of scare tactic is the very definition of protecting the status quo.

Coal is one of the industries that is most responsible for global warming pollution in America. Now that we are finally on the verge of revitalizing our economy at the same time we hold them accountable for the cost of their pollution and reduce the amount of dirty coal we burn, they want to scare us into doing nothing at all.

These distortions and scare tactics don’t change Reality: continuing to burn dirty coal is the scariest thing we can do.

There are dozens and dozens of new coal plants being proposed without technology to capture and store their carbon dioxide pollution. But the EIA’s latest Annual Energy Outlook finds we will need very few of them to meet our electricity demand in the next 10-20 years.

The report — which doesn’t even include the impacts from the recent economic recovery bill or any proposed policies for energy efficiency and new clean energy supplies — assumes only very limited additions of new coal plants over the next 20 years. What does this really mean? With the stimulus’ new investments and policies supporting our transition to clean energy currenty being considered in Washington, we could eliminate the need for those new coal plants entirely, and reduce our existing use of dirty coal.

The EIA outlook on electricity flies in the face of coal industry claims that dozens of new, dirty coal plants are immediately essential to meet our energy demand — claims they’ve made recently to justify efforts in Kansas and Michigan to build more coal plants that will spew global warming pollution into the air for decades to come.

Looks like the coal industry can stop worrying about fighting for new, dirty plants, and start investing in the technologies that will help generate electricity without releasing CO₂ — something we could actually use more of.

It’s interesting because it makes clear the coal industry’s position — they aren’t willing to reduce their profits by taking real action on CO₂ reduction, and they aren’t too concerned about the high external costs of burning coal (in health care treatment, pollution, and global catastrophe) because they don’t directly pay these costs — we do.

ACCCE argues that “shifting the primary burden for reductions to coal-generated power clearly will drive up the costs and put a further dent into the wallets of families and business owners.” But that’s not true. It will drive up the costs to the coal industry, but it won’t be more expensive for consumers unless the industry passes on all of the costs by refusing to take a bite out of their $57 billion a year profit.

Furthermore, coal is responsible for more than 80% of the CO₂ that is released by producing electricity. No energy producer pollutes with CO₂ like coal. So there’s no “shifting” here — it’s ALREADY the coal industry’s burden, they’re just not accepting responsibility.

What do you think will be more costly to America’s families and business owners?

• A gradual reduction in burning coal, as we move to abundant, free and clean sources of energy and upgrade our buildings and appliances to use less energy.

• Increasing our present rate of burning coal: continuing to depend on an uncertain priced fossil fuel that releases the deadly poisons which, according to a 2004 study cited by the American Lung Association, are responsible for an estimated 24,000 premature deaths, 550,000 asthma attacks, 38,000 heart attacks and 12,000 other hospital admissions per year.

  And continuing to release the CO₂ that is heading us toward a collision with, as Time Magazine recently called it, the “asteroid” of global warming — which without action now “will be far worse — and last far longer — than any natural disaster humanity has ever known.”

ACCCE has told us their answer. What’s yours? If you’d like to comment on this article, you can quickly sign up for an account on the Tribune-Democrat’s discussion feature. Of course, you are always free to leave a comment at ACCCE’s blog, too.

Instead of more industry ads and op-ed articles about “clean” coal to make it seem like they are accepting responsibility, the coal industry needs to step up and do something real to solve this very real problem they have helped to create — without making threats to pass on all costs to the consumer.

Of course, that’s just the beginning of what the coal industry isn’t telling you.

For starters, they don’t mention the poisons — toxic compounds like arsenic, mercury and lead that are all released by burning coal.

The coal industry conveniently doesn’t mention these hazardous pollutants alongside their 77% claim because they “did not track emissions of less than 100 tons per year.” Unfortunately for us, it takes a whole lot less than 100 tons of these poisons to do some serious damage.

What’s the Reality?
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS):

• 1/70th of a teaspoon of Mercury can be enough to make the fish in a 25-acre lake unsafe to eat.
• Water containing 50 parts per billion of Arsenic will cause cancer in 1 out of 100 people who drink it.

So how much of these poisons are emitted by coal? UCS estimates, each year, an average 500 MW power plant produces:

• 170 pounds of mercury
• 225 pounds of arsenic
• 114 pounds of lead
• 4 pounds of cadmium, trace amounts of uranium, other toxic heavy metals

Remember, there are about 600 coal-fired power plants operating in America today. Based on those per plant averages, that would be roughly 67 tons of arsenic, and 51 tons of mercury per year — but don’t worry, that’s way under their 100 ton tracking threshold.

And that’s just the pollution that goes into the air. The coal plant also produces toxic waste that doesn’t go up the smokestack. This coal ash and sludge is a super-toxic stew that includes all the compounds and waste that the coal industry has been forced to keep out of the air.

Most of this waste is stored in landfills and ponds at power-plants. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always stay there.

In December 2008, an embankment collapsed at a coal waste pond in Tennessee, resulting in 1.1 billion gallons of toxic sludge flowing across land and into the Emory River. And just last week, a smaller spill occurred into Maryland’s Potomac river when a coal ash pipe sprung a leak and wasn’t noticed for 12 hours.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced they would consider new regulations on such storage facilities. But the fact remains, there’s nothing “clean” or “77% cleaner” about “less than 100 tons” of arsenic, mercury or lead — whether it’s going up a smokestack, sitting in a storage pond, or polluting our lakes, rivers and lands.

But this is not the end of the Dirt on “Clean.” Next up, we’ll look at how the coal industry proudly touts their gains, while fighting tooth and nail for decades to avoid cleaning up their act.

The coal industry has sponsored a professional bass fisherman for the ESPN/BASS Elite top 100 series.

Seems they are trying to drum up some good feelings about coal against a lot of reminders to the contrary. From the Metro News:

[The] new Basscat boat is wrapped in a sleek and colorful scheme that includes a backdrop of Sutton Lake, the Kanawha River, and the state capitol dome. Beside the familiar “Friends of Coal” logo, the rig reads “Clean Coal Power, science and technology engineering coal for the 21st Century.” It’s an important message in a time when coal is taking a beating in Washington and amid the mainstream media.

The coal industry isn’t big on irony, so it’s unlikely they see any in the fact that they are advertising coal to fishing fans, even as mining and burning coal is responsible for killing fish, poisoning rivers and lakes and warming temperatures that threaten fish populations. Or maybe they have a really dark sense of humor.

Either way, we caught this whopper.

The Obama administration will propose new regulations governing coal combustion waste by the end of the year, and will act immediately to prevent accidents like the release in December of more than a billion gallons of coal ash that smothered 300 acres in eastern Tennessee and choked nearby waterways, a senior Environmental Protection Agency official said.

On the heels of this announcement, news of yet another coal ash spill, upriver in Maryland.

Tragic poetry. A gift from our continued dependence on dirty coal electricity.

Merriam-Webster’s first definition of “clean” is “free from dirt or pollution.” Coal is anything but, so how does the coal industry justify making the claim that coal is clean? What type of fuzzy math do they use to avoid stepping in a big pile of Reality? Very selective accounting, glaring omissions and above all — a low regard for the truth and our future.

First let’s take a look at their big claim to success: That they are “77% cleaner” since 1970.

What’s the reality?
There’s one huge problem with the 77% figure. The coal industry has decided to conveniently leave out carbon dioxide.

CO₂ is a leading cause of global warming and the climate crisis. What’s more, CO₂ emissions from coal have actually been increasing — about 25% since 1990. Today, coal-fired plants in the US release more than 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

But somehow, the coal industry doesn’t include CO₂ emissions on their chart labeled “Overall Emissions.” Instead, of the many by-products and pollutants produced by burning coal, their figure only includes five government regulated pollutants — carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter.

Each of these are very different, but the coal industry doesn’t disclose how much of each they produce. Rather, to arrive at their 77% number, they lump these very different pollutants together. What’s more, “77%” doesn’t even represent an actual reduction in all of these emissions. Instead, it’s a ratio (”regulated emissions per unit of energy produced”). So, as production has increased over the past twenty years, some of these emissions have even gone up. Of course, they don’t tell you that either.

Poor chemistry, deceptive accounting, and a glaring omission of CO₂ from their emissions data — so far, “clean coal” isn’t looking so “free from dirt or pollution.”

Your next dose of reality… the deadly poisons that the coal industry also isn’t telling you about! Stay tuned for part 2.