Clean coal is an oxymoron, just like "intelligent design" or "Senate ethics panel". There is nothing clean about coal, you burn it and the by-products are harmful to the planet. Coal can be made clean if you just don't burn it!

Now, even in heartland of the big coal country America, the public is seeing through the big lie being spread around by the coal industry. In Kentucky, locals have embraced clean energy instead of a coal plant.

Jeff Biggers at Huffington Post says,

"Recognizing the spiraling costs of coal-fired plant construction and more practical energy efficiency and renewable energy options, the East Kentucky Power Cooperative has agreed to halt its once fervent plans to construct two coal-burning power plants in Clark County.

The announcement comes nearly one year after American Municipal Power abandoned its plans to build a coal-fired power plant along the Ohio River in Meigs County, and shifted the battle between coal-fired plants and New Power sources to Kentucky.

Led by EKPC members, the Sierra Club, Kentucky Environmental Foundation and Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, along with individual co-op members Wendell Berry, Father John Rausch and Dr. John A. Patterson, the announcement comes as an extraordinary shift in the national debate over coal-fired energy."

A very positive development indeed. Kentucky is moving in right direction, not only are they saving money by not choosing coal, they are also saving the environment and some cold cash.

"Clean coal" lie manufacturers must be going crazy right now. Let them! facts and science don't support them either. Here are some simple truths about coal 

• Carbon capture and storage(a plan that could make coal "clean") is a scam.
• 24,000 people a year still die prematurely from pollution emitted at coal-fired power plants, in addition to a litany of other health effects that injure and impede hundreds of thousands of Americans.
• Time magazine reported in 2009,"coal remains a highly polluting source of electricity that has serious impacts on human health, especially among those who live near major plants. Take coal ash, a solid byproduct of burned coal. A draft report last year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the ash contains significant levels of carcinogens, and that the concentration of arsenic in ash, should it contaminate drinking water, could increase cancer risks by several hundred times."

  And the list of myths and lies about coal and clean coal goes on and on. The industry is spending millions to cheat people, instead of investing it on honestly clean power plants. How about investing in a wind farm or solar energy, you "clean coal" liars?

Bhumika Ghimire