Coal is widely derided as the least environmentally friendly option for power generation. It has, for several hundred years, been responsible for the generation of large amounts of mercury, soot and other pollutants that are known to cause respiratory ailments. This is very true for the people who work in coal mines, several thousand of which die from coal-related damage each year.
The term clean coal technology has been very regularly used as a buzz-word in the ‘aughts as a way to utilize a home grown energy source. This usually refers to the use of scrubbers to cut down on the amount of sulfur dioxide that is emitted. Though this smog and acid rain producing chemical is removed from the stack output, it is still deposited in the materials that are used to scrub it out of the emissions. Regulations are such that this also allows much lower grades of coal to be legally used, with little or no net improvement in emissions.
