Some presidential candidates and many energy industry leaders are touting the benefits of “clean coal” technology. Often lumped into stump speeches about alternative and renewable energy, state and federal politicians mix their message like a recipe, a smidge of wind energy, a bit of solar energy, a modicum of geothermal energy and a whole bunch of clean coal.

Which raises the question, Is there such a thing?

No, says Scot Rutledge, the executive director of the Nevada Conservation League. “From the dig, to the burn, to the gas that’s released, nothing is clean.” Rutledge says current technology shows the only economic way to produce coal is through traditional methods.

Which is exactly what the energy industry is doing. The Department of Energy is tracking over 150 proposed and new coal power plants across the United States. At least 14 proposed plants are in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada. Two out of the three planned for Nevada are among the largest in the region.

Sierra Pacific is planning to build a 1500 MW conventional pulverized coal plant near Ely that would use 2.6 billion gallons of water a year. The Ely Energy Center would be the largest culprit of greenhouse emissions among new plants in the southwest with projected carbon dioxide emissions of 12.6 million tons per year. Sierra Pacific plans to add two additional 500 MW coal gasification units in the future.

LS Power Group’s White Pine Project, also near Ely, projects 600 to 800 MW using conventional pulverized coal and producing 5.5 million tons of carbon emissions per year.

The Toquop Energy Project near Mesquite proposed by Sithe Global will produce 750 MW and use 800 million gallons of water each year. Using “super critical” pulverized coal technology the plant would increase thermal efficiency, but not control CO2. Projected carbon emissions are 6,300,000 tons.

EPA data shows coal-fired plants emit more carbon dioxide than cars, trucks, planes, trains, and other forms of transportation combined. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, one 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant produces the annual global warming emissions of roughly 600,000 cars. Using that formula, the combined carbon dioxide emissions of the three proposed Nevada plants equal more than 3.5 million cars.

Pulverized coal plants claim new technologies render them cleaner than coal-fired power plants used to be, but Sierra Club Regional Representative Lydia Bell is not impressed. “They say that they’re 5 to 10 percent more efficient. To me it’s not clean, 5 to 10 percent is just not significant when you’re dealing with a coal plant.”

Bell said not only are coal plants the largest contributor of green house emissions, but are also a key source of other pollutants. “It is a danger to the immediate area and to a larger area. Mercury can travel farther than previously anticipated.” Bell pointed out that coal plants are the leading producer of mercury in the United States.

Coal plants also generate sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, arsenic and lead, among other toxins.

Carbon capture technology has the potential to remove 80 to 90 percent of CO2 from a power plant. Retrofitting coal plants with carbon capture technology is an expensive proposition and there are still problems with transporting and storing carbon after capture. An April Congressional Research Service outlines strategies and barriers to expanding pipelines nationally for CO2 transportation to storage. The majority of current CO2 pipelines are in the oil and natural gas fields of Texas and New Mexico.

One analysis suggests “77 percent of the total annual CO2 captured from the major North American sources may be stored in reservoirs directly underlying these sources” and 18 percent could be stored within 100 miles of additional sources. In this scenario, the majority of pipelines would be limited to onsite transportation along with some long distance pipelines.

However, other analysts suggest captured CO2 may need to be stored in more centralized reservoirs to “reduce potential risks associated with CO2 leaks.” While CO2 occurs naturally in the environment, concentrations above 25 percent pose a significant asphyxiation danger. In 1986 a naturally occurring CO2 release from Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa killed over 1700 people in the nearby villages of Nyos, Kam and Sabum.

Once at a storage site, CO2 could be injected into geological formations. CO2 injection is currently used at oil sites for enhanced oil recovery. But safety concerns such as asphyxiation or groundwater contamination near storage sites require additional research.

Large-scale capture and storage of carbon emissions is likely at least 10 to 20 years away.

So why aren’t more politicians adverse to any notion of new coal plants?

Probably for the same reason that the nation doesn’t have an aggressive, coherent energy policy that significantly encourages renewable alternatives and conservation. The coal mining industry and utilities that operate coal-fired power plants enjoy a significant, long-standing and traditionally very powerful political and economic presence, from the communities where the plants are located to states legislatures and regulatory agencies to Congress and the White House. The coal mining industry contributed more than a combined $5 million to federal candidates and party organizations in 2004 and 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The electric utility industry contributed more than $31.5 million over those same two election cycles.

Or, as Rutledge puts it, “The politically safe thing to do is talk about clean coal technologies.”