Coal: It's "our moon"

And I know a fine thing when I see it.
See it. For the same reason no-one ever
Pointed a telescope at the sun.
The Clash, "Red Angel Dragnet," 1982.

Sometimes there is something, such as the sun, that is so omnipresent we forget it is there. Like coal. Since more than half of the electricity we generate comes from coal, you are probably reading my post on your coal-powered computer.

Of the proven recoverable reserves of coal, the United States has more than any other country. It's been said that we are the Saudi Arabia of coal.

That's not exactly true, as the Illinois Coal Association informs us:

According to the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) there are 100 billion tons of recoverable coal beneath the borders of Illinois. This is enough coal to meet the country's need for coal for the next 100 years. There is more energy content in the coal in Illinois than in the oil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined!

Just as it rarely occurs to people to point (and don't do this unless you have a very strong filter) a telescope at the sun, it's the same with our energy needs--one of the answers to our energy needs is right beneath our feet: Coal.

Coal, especially high-sulfur Illinois coal, can be a dirty fuel. Scrubbers installed on power plants have made them cleaner, but quite a bit more research needs to be done, especially on sulfur-extraction. Meanwhile, the first carbon-capture coal plant began generating electricity last year. It's in Germany, not the United States.

As for what needs to be done here, I'll leave it to the president. In those ubiquitous USAService.org public service announcements, Barack Obama asks rhetorically "Where's my moon, my levee, my dream?"

Our moon is that "fine thing" up in the picture: Coal.

Technorati tags: Democrats politics Obama Barack Obama coal environment energy Illinois clean coal alternative energy