During his campaign and continuing to his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump traveled coal country to tout the "comeback" of coal, despite its clear decline as an energy source for industry and electric generation over the past three decades. His many, many lies were intended to get the votes of wishful coal industry workers, who have seen a major contraction in coal mining and demand.
From a very unlikely source, we know that the so-called "carbon capture and sequestration" (CCS) technology has failed, and has merely been a campaign tool for the likes of charlatans like Rump. One of Rump's major financial backers Robert Murray, himself the CEO of Murray Energy, the largest privately owned coal company in the U.S., says that CCS was a pipe dream all along:
“It is neither practical nor economic, carbon capture and sequestration. It is just cover for the politicians, both Republicans and Democrats that say, ‘Look what I did for coal,’ knowing all the time that it doesn’t help coal at all.”Yet, as recently as June 7, Rump was touting the opening of a coal mine in Pennsylvania, and suggesting that coal had a big future in the U.S.'s energy mix. In truth, the technology that was supposed to save coal as a feasible, economic energy option has been discredited not only by a mogul in the industry itself, but by failed experiments and projects to boost it. Of course, that truth won't keep a pathological liar and con man like Rump from planting false hopes in the hearts of those whose votes he wants.
(photo by Dominick Reuter, AFP, Getty. "I'M LYING"; there, fixed the sign.)
