"Clean coal" isn't and probably won't ever be

So says The New York Time's environmental reporter, Andrew Revkin. Money quote:

Behind the gloss, experts who have run the numbers still say that at a scale the atmosphere would notice, capturing and burying CO2 remains a pipe dream.

The idea that this isn't a pipe dream is the whole point of the massive marketing campaign -- employed in force at both party conventions -- of The American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy. What's disturbing is that Barack Obama took up the coal-industry group's mantra and included it in his acceptance speech Thursday night. I was as wowed as anybody by Obama's speech, but his endorsement of the clean coal idea is worrying.