Clean Coal Technology

[karsen]

Black Landlord wrote:
[quote=karsen]
[quote=Black Landlord]
I'm surprised that nobody mentioned the environmental abomination unleashed when the tops are blown off of mountains to farm the coal.
Even if it burnt completely "clean" you have to get it out of the ground somehow.

Here's a positive spin on that... Driving up and down mountains kills your gas mileage!
Sorry to bring you back down- no picnic for drivers either:

Coal washing often results in thousands of gallons of contaminated water that looks like black sludge and contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals. The sludge, or slurry, is often contained behind earthen dams in huge sludge ponds. One of these ponds broke on February 26th, 1972 above the community of Buffalo Creek in southern West Virginia. Pittston Coal Company had been warned that the dam was dangerous, but they did nothing. Heavy rain caused the pond to fill up and it breached the dam, sending a wall of black water into the valley below. Over 132 million gallons of black wastewater raged through the valley. 125 people were killed, 1100 injured and 4000 were left homeless. Over 1000 cars and trucks were destroyed and the disaster did 50 million dollars in damage. The coal company called it an “act of God”.

http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php
It was a joke. See, no mountains = better gas mileage. It could be the marketing campaign of the coal industry.