Will Clean Coal Technology Save the Tuna Fish?

Psst! Wanna see what clean-coal technology really looks like? A brand new Reality ad campaign is ready to debunk the myth of “clean coal” from the coal industry.

Environmental experts agree that coal is the dirtiest fuel America uses to produce electricity. The Reality Coalition, a joint project of the Sierra Club, Alliance for Climate Protection, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, and National Wildlife Federation, is challenging the coal industry to come clean in its advertising and in its operations.

Coal burning plants not only cause visible air pollution in our urban areas, but the toxic particulates fall to earth in the form of acid rain, polluting our crops and waterways, not to mention the oceans. You’ve heard about rising mercury levels in tuna fish? Near the top of the food chain as predator fish, tuna ingest lots of little fish that have eaten tainted plants and smaller sea organisms. The mercury is bio-accumulative and builds up through the long lifetime of the tuna (up to 30 years or longer).

Almost 35% of the mercury consumed in the U.S. comes from tuna.

What kills me is that our response to the rising mercury levels has been to issue voluntary guidelines as to how frequently we eat tuna fish. These warnings are especially stringent for pregnant women and children, where the developing brains are at the most risk for permanent damage from mercury exposure.

Personally, I would rather see more efforts focused on reducing the toxification of our oceans by industrial pollutants instead of idly watching the mercury levels rise in fish and the oceanic dead zones where nothing can live, grow. Would someone please remind the remaining schools of tuna of the reasons behind snubbing the Kyoto Treaty?

Have we been hoodwinked by the coal industry into believing this fossil fuel can ever be a clean energy solution for our future? Does clean coal technology really exist, or is it an oxymoron?

Here’s the Reality Coalition’s clean coal technology message.

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