Green Wombat

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced $1 billion in tax credits for nine companies developing gasification and other so-called clean coal technologies. The winners include Duke Energy (DUK) and the Southern Company (SO), two giant utilities in the southeast United States that have been targeted by environmentalists over pollution from their coal-burning power stations. Gasification breaks down coal and transforms it into a gas that can be burned with lower emissions of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide, greenhouse gases that form smog and acid rain and contribute to global warming. Gasification plants operate more efficiently than standard coal-fired power stations and thus have lower carbon dioxide emissions. The technology, of course, does nothing to ameliorate the high environmental costs and greenhouse emissions that result from coal mining itself.