Video: How Clean Is Clean Coal?

I was born and raised in Reading, PA, a bit south of the NE PA "coal reagions". During the pre- and post-WW II period when coal was energy king in manufacturing processes, the Schuylkill River that ran north to south through those coal mining cities, and right through Reading - - in those days a foundry town - - to the Dealware River. That river and its banks were filled with coal silt, all the fish were long dead save carp, the water was literally coal black, and the river worthless as a water resource. [It took several years and great expense after WW II to dredge it out - - and since then it has been a beautiful blue-green recreational asset and a useful water resource.] The old Reading Railroad ran right through the center of town, literally, and the coal burning locomotives spewed a torrent of coal dust everywhere. The town was filthy with black dust for all the 25 years I lived there. I worked for several years as an laboratory reaearch chemist and as an industrial hygienist for the Commonwealth of PA in the 1950's and saw the effects of coal burning in that vicinity. NOT A PRETTY PICTURE ! God knows how many people developed respiratory ailments and cancers from that situation, but no one payed much attention back then. Health hazzards from massive pollution were accepted. And THAT coal was (and is now) "CLEAN BURNING" ANTHRACITE. One may imagine what the situation was, and still is in western PA, West Virginia, and Ohio (and elsewhere) with really dirty burning, high sulfur BITUMINOUS coal.
The "cleaning" action of smoke stack scrubbers and precipitators doesn't convince anyone that they are anywhere near a suitable "solution" - - nor any treatment of the coal itself, whether by "liquifaction", "fluid bed-ization", sulfur removal, or any of the "remedies" proposed, especially considering the expense involved and the meager result. Still, only since we have realized that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to global warming, have we come to the conclusion that ANY fuel that produces carbon oxides (among, inevitably, other pollutants as well) will defeat itself - - and us with it.
NOTICE THE OBAMA QUALFIED HIS ADVOCACY OF COAL USE BY ASSERTING THAT WE MUST FIRST LEARN HOW TO SEQUESTER THE CARBON. McCAIN WAS, AS IS HIS HABIT, MUCH MORE VAGUE. OK for Obama, but it's a pipe dream. I am for more concerned about some of our members of Congress who have vested intersest in promoting coal for political or selfish (monetary) reasons. Right now, coal advocates are capitalizing on our frustration and panic about oil cost and shortages, seeing a timely advantage in pushing a non-solution - - to their selfish benefit.
We would be MUCH better off placing our hopes on nuclear FUSION (not fission) reseach to arrive at a solution to our energy problem. Another Manhattan Project (international, this time) to achieve the successful production of abundant heat from nuclear fusion could well be as successful in solving the energy problem (AND WITHOUT PRODUCING LARGE AMOUNTS OF LETHAL NUCLEAR WASTE) - - if anybody in Washington DC were paying any attention to the international community of physicists who could be nearing a break-thorough, WITH SUFFICIENT FUNDING.
Of course, such a tremendously expensive, international project would necessitate the cessation of the politically motivated occupation of Iraq (a far more costly and internationally destabilizing "project"), a draw-down on tax give aways to the wealthy, a return of a stable middle class of US workers (both "blue" and "white" collar), and the revival of the enforcement of government regulations of our run amok corporations. None of that will even begin to see any light until the current DC administration is removed. If McCain is elected, forget about it !
If Obama makes it and the Houses of Congress both achieve Dem majorities, there may be some hope that they will wake up to reality and stop skimming tax payer money for their own purposes.

I'm very disappointed in this video. As the first physician quoted, and a researcher in the studies that have characterized the P. vera epidemic in NE Pa., you have neglected a major risk in the development of this disease -- illegal dumping.

You simply identified the McAdoo Associates Superfund site as a dumping place for coal ash. It was much more than that, with incredible quantities of industrial wastes transported from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania for "safe" disposal only to have these compounds simply poured into an airshaft.

While it is possible that heavy metals in coal ash are the cause of P. vera, it is more likely that the toxic cocktail illegally dumped at the site, and similar superfund sites throughout the tri-county area, are the culprit.