Living in Appalachia, it’s hard to believe that anyone in the region believes that coal is a viable source of energy for the present, let alone for the future. Less than a year ago in Harriman, Tenn., a coal slurry at a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired power plant broke. The result was 525 million gallons of heavy metal-laden coal ash dumped into the Tennessee River, a disaster 40 times larger than the now infamous Exxon-Valdez oil spill.

There are countless other examples of such tragedies in our neck of the woods. The Big Branch spill in Kentucky, the catastrophe at Buffalo Creek, W. Va. and the realties of dirty water supplies and air pollution that residents of mining areas live with daily are all the fault of coal companies.

Despite such issues there is still talk among politicians and citizens alike of clean coal.

Clean coal does not exist, and it’s not likely to come about anytime soon.

Coal is the biggest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States, and attempts at changing that focus on containing and storing those carbon emissions from coal-fired plants.

Storing these emissions means keeping them underground, which not only seems unavailable for any kind of long-term plan, given the sheer volume the emissions would eventually reach. Even if such a thing were possible, the Department of Energy reports that it could cause the price of coal-generated electricity to jump drastically. Also, it would still be dirty coal.

The idea of 100 percent emission capture isn’t really on the table at the moment and extracting coal will always be a dirty business.

Older mine workers have their war stories of respiratory disease and frequent injuries from underground accidents.

Even today, miners still face great physical dangers and the process of mining irreversibly effects the environment.

In worst case scenarios like mountain top removal mining, entire ecosystems are destroyed and residents are left to deal with carcinogenic toxins in their air and water for the rest of their lives.

Activists from our own communities, like the Kayford 8, know this and their actions have helped bring these issues to the forefront.

The idea of clean coal may be comforting but it is past time to stop relying on what is comfortable when it comes to our energy policy and face the realities of finite resources.

When it comes to energy policy, the U.S. needs to look to viable alternatives and the possibility of a major change instead of trying to stick with a coal addiction that is destined to end badly no matter what.

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