Can Coal Really Be Clean? Not So Much

A big topic in the 2008 campaign was energy independence and one major element of such independence was (and is) U.S. coal, especially the promise of clean coal. Both John McCain and Barack Obama touted the benefits of this supposed form of cheap and clean energy.

Too bad, then, that clean coal may be more hype than reality. The technology to produce and use coal in a "green" fashion seems many years away.

Meanwhile, we have this very real coal problem here and now:

A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

More on the coal ash spill from the New York Times here.