Environmental radicals have launched a new campaign against use of coal - any use of it - to meet the nation's energy requirements.
It is ironic that the campaign is being mounted via television. Without electricity from coal-fired power plants, about half of the people in America would not be able to watch an advertisement produced as part of the campaign.
Clean-coal technology is the environmentalists' target. Their television spot takes a sarcastic view. It features an announcer who says: "Clean coal. Heard a lot about it, so let's take a tour of this state-of-the-art clean coal facility." He then ushers viewers into an empty lot. The message, according to the announcer, is that "there's no such thing as clean coal."
Radicals in charge of the campaign don't want the United States to use more coal. They don't like nuclear energy, either. They prefer "green" technologies such as wind and solar power.
You guessed it: Viewers would be ushered into an empty field. That is because "green" technology - as appealing as it certainly is - simply isn't ready to replace coal, oil or natural gas.
Proponents of increased use of coal, perhaps for liquid and gaseous fuels, see it as a bridge to the time when more of our energy needs can be filled by solar power, wind power or other "green" technologies. But the radicals don't want to hear that. They don't want to face reality.
Americans have no choice but to be realistic, however. Clean-coal technology is vital to our future, in many ways. Allowing the radicals to use scare tactics to force us away from it would be a terrible mistake, resulting in a very real disaster.