The State of the Union address touched on energy policy, as expected. President Obama presented a lofty goal of 80% clean energy by 2035. "Clean energy" is a convenient turn of phrase, which allows him to promote things like "clean coal" as legitimate alternatives to conventional energy. You see, clean energy is just energy that has lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional energy. How much lower? Well, there's not really a threshold. And what about the other environmental impacts of energy production, like water use? Well, clean energy doesn't cover that.
What is "clean coal"?
It's coal that is burned in such a way that emits fewer greenhouse gas emissions. This sounds great, since coal is the most abundant fossil fuel on the planet. Sadly, the only real "clean coal" technology that exists today is carbon capture and storage, which basically entails "capturing" the CO2 as the coal is burned, and storing it underground. This could be cool, except that it is completely cost prohibitive. Not only that, it takes considerable amounts of energy to accomplish.
Through some clever semantics, President Obama is avoiding our energy crisis and calling it innovation.
