President Obama made it a point to support “clean coal” technology during the campaign. Now he is the president, he is speaking of clean coal once again but much to the dismay of his own party and mostly those on the far left.
But why should the left be against using the most abundant energy we have in the US that could be the short term answer to energy independence. Especially if it can be made “Environmentally Clean”. After all, what they want is energy that is sustainable, affordable and potentially environmentally friendly. They should put one plant on a fast track, see if they can make it work and for what cost, then lets see about replicating it if it is a success.
A quick background on this is some of the companies supporting this are were pushing a clean coal plant in Illinois, his home state and of course the coal companies. In a small town along the Ohio River named Wellsville, Ohio, Baard Energy / Ohio River Clean Fuels has proposed a plant to turn coal and biomass into premium grade diesel fuel and also have a 1200 megawatt power station. Well their you have a military solution to internal needs as the military has been doing away with most other types of fuels other than diesel which is the same as aircraft fuel formulated differently.
Just listening to the normal slant that I have been hearing from the left, one would think they just do not like anything. After all, many wind power proposals have been shot down as aesthetically incorrect . Just where do we get the energy we need to progress as a nation in the short/medium term here while we wait for cost improvements in solar and hydrogen and batteries for cars that have a life and do not weigh as much as or pollute as much as the cars.
Most important this issue is and a matter of national security and economy. We all do not want to import oil, and since all economies around the world are very dependent on these fossil fuels we need to be more independent of of it both in the sense of what we can produce ourselves and conserve what we consume while we wait for those promised alternatives to be cost efficient.
Obama has taken a bold move. One that I hope he can win for all of our sake as if no action is taken and when the economy improves, it will once again be choke off by the cost of energy and yet more of our dollars traded for oil.
More important, if we should find ourselves in a larger war, the US Military who is the worlds largest user of oil, will find itself being the blame for crippling the economy for its own high consumption. If we did not import any oil our economy would be very robust despite the banks and our overspending.
One thing is for sure, if nobody comes up with the intermediate answer soon, our economy will sit flat at best and we will watch China exceed past all the worlds economies and power, even if they are killing off there own with their own environmental madness.
It is time we tried something more than a few token experiments to remody this energy problem. Coal could be one alternative and no matter what we chose, it is now time to put-up or shut-up for those who only oppose.