A Second Look | Claire McCaskill Tweets Like a Republican & The Myth of Clean Coal

via Think Progress » Claire McCaskill Tweets That Clean Energy Bill Will ‘Unfairly Punish’ Missouri.

Last night, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which will establish the first national standards for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and global warming pollution. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) responded on Twitter this morning, saying that the legislation’s cap on carbon pollution would “unfairly punish” Missouri’s families and businesses:

Who needs Luntz or Norquist when we have a DEMOCRAT to put out the weekly Republican talking point?

Thanks Claire.

At any rate, I want to urge everyone to follow the link back to the original story at Think Progress and read through some of the readers’ comments. One in particular grabbed my attention as being representative of the right-wing echo machine at full speed. The commentator is trying to make the case that coal doesn’t pollute:

Tim Vaculik Says:

Folks, we have the cleanest coal-fired power plants in the WORLD.

If we want to get away from using coal, fine! Let’s invest in NUCLEAR power plants like the French!

June 27th, 2009 at 8:37 pm

You know, there are many things that could be said about this one statement, but here’s what I have to say.

Actually what we have, Tim, are coal fired electric plants that have never stopped pouring billions of tons of CO2 into the air. They don’t have the technology to stop it. They claim that coal is “clean” because they capture the particulates, or ash, in smoke stack scrubbers before the hot smoke is released. They take that ash and pour it into water pools called impoundments that they dig on whatever land is available, sometimes near streams so that the polluting ash can seep into the water, and sometimes the ash dams burst causing an ecological catastrophe and either injuring or endangering human life. Many of these dams have not been inspected in 20 years.

The coal fired smoke that is still released into the atmosphere has the ash removed so that it is invisible and appears to be “clean” when in reality not one pound of CO2 is removed. “Clean coal” is a lie.

The FutureGen project in eastern Illinois was abandoned last year due to cost overrun. The Department of Energy, along with some private investors, began the project to develop the worlds first coal fired electrical plant that would capture and store carbon dioxide given off from burning coal. They gave up when the price tag went over $1.8 Billion.  It was in the news again a few days ago because another two of the private investors dropped out and the Department of Energy is looking for more.

And don’t get me started on mountain-top removal.