Have you seen the ads on TV from the coal industry touting how clean coal is? They are doing this on the premise that if you repeatedly hear and see ads promoting clean coal that you will start to believe it. Any industry that has to advertise about how clean they are probably isn`t. The fact is that the coal-fired, electrical generating industry is the largest polluter of air and water in the United States. Big money and slick marketing doesn`t change the facts. There about 600 coal powered electrical generating facilities in the U.S. Together they are 19% of total electric generating capacity. These facilities generate 1/3 of all the manmade carbon dioxide, 40% of all the mercury pollution, 25% of the nitrogen oxide and 66% of the sulfur oxide produced in this country. There is also a bi-product called fly ash that is extremely small particles of coal ash and due to their small size can by-pass the lung`s natural defenses and cause health issues. Those are impressive numbers and health consequences for only 600 facilities. All of these bi-products that spew out of their smokestacks are detrimental to our health and also the planet`s health. The government sampled fish from 291 streams across the country and every sample tested positive for mercury, 25% of the time at levels so high that it was unsafe to eat even one fish. This pollution causes an estimated 13,000 death per year along with tens of thousands of respiratory and heart problems.
This mix of pollutants is where acid rain comes from. This acid rain is toxic enough to kill trees at higher elevation in the eastern U. S. and make lakes sterile because the pH of the water has risen to extremely high acidic levels. This mix of smokestack chemicals is also one of the main culprits causing global climate change. Worldwide there are about 50,000 of these coal powered plants. 50,000! Man that sure is a lot of smokestacks.
The number of coal powered plants in the U. S. is going down due to the fact that several operations are converting to natural gas. This is because they can produce a kilowatt of electricity from natural gas for less than half of what it would cost to produce that same kilowatt with coal. Natural gas also produces less than one half of the pollutants.
The State of Florida will not allow the construction of any new coal powered generating facilities and some power plants in Florida are converting to natural gas. Currently there are 30 generating units in Florida at 14 locations. The energy complex in Crystal River produces over 16,000,000 tons of CO2 per year along with 550 pounds of mercury and all of the rest of the pollutants that are distributed across the landscape, according to which way the wind blows.
So the next time you see a commercial from the coal industry bragging about how clean they are, remember that the facts tell a completely different story. It is like they think that we are mindless idiots. | 
