Keep That Middle Finger in the Air

I happened to catch one of the clean coal television commercials that I mentioned in a previous post.  The advertisement - I wasn't able to find it on YouTube, otherwise there would be a link here - along with the corresponding website, are hosted by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).  One quick thought before I briefly discuss what I found on their website:  I think an advocacy group that tries to help make coal-based energy cleaner is a good thing.  Coal-fired power isn't going anywhere for a while, and if we can make it less destructive in the meantime by utilizing technology that decreases harmful emissions from power plants, I'm all for it.  But that's not what the ACCCE is.

The ACCCE website claims that "the environmental performance of coal-based generation for traditional emissions such as SO2, NOx and particulate matter has been significantly improved."  On the original page, this sentence is a link, presumably to a cited reference for this claim.  When you click on this link, however, it takes you to another page on the americaspower.org site.  So now at this new page, I have to click on yet another link to see the reference that they've cited.  This next link takes me to an EPA air pollution trends database.  From here, in order to see the data that the ACCCE cited, I have to open an Excel file that contains the data.

So that's what I did.  And I learned a few things.

The ACCCE's claim that SO2 and NOx emission have been reduced is true.  In fact, these reductions have been fairly dramatic.  Although I would hasten to add that these reductions are probably largely due to the EPA regulations that the ACCCE is so vehemently against.  This is an odd stance:  touting results as your own victory when you are opposed to the causes behind those results.  And what about the claim that particulate matter emissions have been significantly improved?  Not so much.  Since 1970, the amount of particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5-10 microns produced from electrical utilities has been reduced; that much is true.  But particular matter with a diameter of 2.5 or smaller has increased, and done so by nearly four-fold.  Other emissions that have seen increases over the years include carbon monoxide and volatile organics.  And ammonia emissions, which were non-existent in the power production industry through 1995, have increased steadily, reaching 37,000 tons in 2011.

So exactly how clean is coal?  Not really all that clean.