Coal Industry Front Group Holds Arkansas Clean Coal Technology Conference

Mark your calendars! On Thursday, July 17, 2008, the coal industry front group "American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity" (ACCCE) is co-sponsoring a conference in Hope, Arkansas.

From the press release:

"A full slate of expert speakers highlights the agenda of the upcoming Arkansas Clean Coal Technology Conference in Hope, Arkansas. The conference details Arkansas' role in the development and deployment of advanced clean coal technologies as well as the associated environmental, economic and public policy concerns. The event runs July 17 -18, 2008."

That's only a few days from now! It's open to the public, so you're free to show up, have a seat, and bask in the misinformation and mythology.

Let's take a look at the conference schedule.

 

Day One:

Randy Eminger of the ACCCE will let us know the role of the coal industry is in Arkansas. I wonder if his presentation include any of those pesky facts, like:

 

Then, it's Clean Coal College time.

Class, it's time for a lecture on "Advanced Clean Coal Technology 101". Hopefully there won't be a first-day-of-class pop quiz, although it's easy to make up clean coal myths. Piece of cake!

Of course, there will be a couple of carbon capture talks:

"Development and Demonstration of Clean Coal Technologies" and "What to do About Greenhouse Gasses".

Regarding the former, what does "demonstration" mean?

A series of slides showing a process that has hardly entered the first stages of development? As for the latter presentation, the answer to that question doesn't involve coal in any way.

Next up: Propaganda 101.

Well, the actual title is "Clean Coal Media Outreach - Educating The Masses". Maybe they'll sit and watch a few hours of CNN to see how it's done.

 

Day Two:

Summary: politicians, businesspeople, and regulatory talking heads get cozy with a dirty energy front group.

They'll talk about national energy security, as well as how the federal government needs to cough up billions of dollars to throw into the bottomless clean coal pit.

Add a dash of business spin ("clean coal isn't expensive, and the regulatory problems aren't so bad") and a finishing ironic touch ("not only are we storing carbon, we'll enhance oil recovery, so we can burn more fossil fuels"), and you've got a day full of classic energy industry handwaving.