Irresponsible Act

by Maria Sera
(Philippines)

This is pool of a coal dirt being dumped by Semirara Mining Corporation in Semirara Island, Philippines. It's a shame that coal companies are earning millions of dollars on this business and declaring they are for "clean coal" but the irony is, while cleaning their coal, the dirt is being dumped on the pristine sea of the island!

Barry's Response - This looks like an environmental disaster already happening. The clean coal designation can include one of many environmental initiatives, but maybe the definition should be made more stringent.

In North America, they have assigned this phrase meaning of their own. It is any way of doing things that that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise result from burning coal to generate electrical power. The reduction of these gases even goes as far as sequestration, carbon capture and underground storage. The purpose is to control climate change.

How do they achieve this? Operations typically use pre-capture, oxy-fuel combustion and/or post-capture carbon capture and storage technologies. The idea is to capture gases like carbon-dioxide, compress it into a liquid form, and inject it into the ground.

Is it the best thing? No one knows for sure, but most believe it is preferable to releasing it to the atmosphere the way we have been.

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