Clean Coal
U.S. Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer claims that “there is no such thing as clean coal” because “air pollution from coal causes cancer, asthma, and heart conditions.”
IN FACT, the U.S. Department of Energy wrote in 2010:
While coal used to be a dirty fuel to burn, technology advances have helped to greatly improve air quality, especially in the last 20 years. Scientists have developed ways to capture the pollutants trapped in coal before they escape into the atmosphere. Today, technology can filter out 99 percent of the tiny particles and remove more than 95 percent of the acid rain pollutants in coal, and also help control mercury.
Similarly, EPA datasets reveal that the technological advances of the past 25 years have reduced sulfur dioxide emissions per Btu of coal-generated energy by 94% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 88%.
Furthermore, the national average ambient levels of all criteria air pollutants are currently below the EPA’s clean air standards, even after the EPA tightened those standards.
Moreover, the EPA estimates that air toxics from all outdoor sources of pollution increase the average risk of cancer over the first 70 years of life by 0.003 percentage points. For comparison, the average risk of developing cancer by the age of 70 is 20%.
When it comes to coal or any other substance, many people fail to understand that the most fundamental principle of toxicology is that “the dose makes the poison,” and all substances can be toxic or benign, depending upon their doses. Even water and oxygen are toxic to humans in high doses, while small amounts of “extremely toxic” substances like arsenic are a “normal component of the human body.”
