Can Coal really be clean?

Throughout this past election season we heard about “clean coal.” The phrase sounds great to Americans concerned about our dependence on foreign oil, and the U.S. has enough coal to generate our electricity for hundreds of years. But what do “clean coal” technologies really entail, and can an ancient energy source responsible for 40% of U.S. CO2 emissions really clean up its act?

The US DOE sees "zero emissions" coal technology as a core element of its future energy supply in a carbon-constrained world. It had an ambitious program to develop and demonstrate the technology and have commercial designs for plants with an electricity cost of only 10% greater than conventional coal plants available by 2012, but with the cancellation of FutureGen this is in doubt.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/clean-coal.htm

http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf83.html

http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/