The 'Clean Coal' Debate Continues

The Daily Egyptian has been following a debate on 'clean coal' that was spurred by a reader's letter to the editor on November 8 entitled "SIUC should come clean about dirty secrets." In today's DE there was a response by Dr. Koropchak, vice chancellor for research and graduate dean, and John Mead, director of the Coal Extraction and Utilization Research Center, entitled "Coal research a positive community contributor."

Whether you consider the term 'clean coal' an oxy-moron, do we really have the luxury of ending coal research today because burning coal for energy is dirty? "Clean coal" is not like "healthy cigarettes," because coal provides something we need to survive at the moment; even if organic vegetables and meat should be on everyone's plate, that's not the reality we end up with, because of supply, prices, lack of education, etc. Let's be realistic: what's the alternative today? Switch to renewables? How? What is the mix of renewables that would work in this region, and how much would it cost? How much emissions would it create, what would be the reduction from switching from coal? What is the time span we're looking at to replace the current means of power generation? These are actually things that can be calculated and optimized. Just take Mechanical Engineering 446 and you'll learn all about it. My theory would be it would be a good amount of time and money to reach this goal, which doesn't mean it shouldn't be pursued post-haste.

Possibly more of a burning question is the source of feedstock for liquid fuels. Ethanol's future is not yet known. UC Davis reported on Nov. 8 that one of their studies shows that "Oil will run dry before substitutes roll out." Coal can serve as a feedstock for liquid fuels. Should we ignore it because it's so dirty? How long until electric vehicles can replace liquid-fueled vehicles? Is this even an option for all transportation energy needs?

Do we need coal research to transition to the clean future? Is the human race in a position today where it can simply step off coal research? Can we simply take all the stuff that's bad for us off the shelf or will we starve? If so, what is the solution, what are the steps? Please share your opinions.