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A new report from the U.K’s Guardian newspaper has unveiled that Peabody Energy, the U.S.’s largest coal producer, was actively funding over two dozen groups that advocated a policy of climate change denial, including various trade associations, corporate lobby groups, and conservative think-tanks. While long suspected by environmental groups, Peabody’s role in climate change denial was uncovered when the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in April.

“These groups collectively are the heart and soul of climate denial,” says Climate Investigation Center founder Kert Davies, referring to the groups funded by the coal giant. “It’s the broadest list I have seen of one company funding so many nodes in the denial machine.”
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We’re desperately searching for new oil and gas (with fracking), but we have plenty of coal. China does too, but they use so much of it that their country is hopelessly polluted. If only we could find a way to burn coal without releasing carbon dioxide.

It may have happened. Researchers have just produced heat from coal for 203 continuous hours, while capturing 99% of the CO2 produced in the reaction.

Biomolecular engineer Liang-Shih Fan pioneered technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically harnesses coal’s energy and efficiently contains the carbon dioxide produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.
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The US isn’t the only country facing the coal conundrum, meaning we have plenty of coal, but don’t want to burn it, because it causes pollution and climate change.

On oilprice.com, Charles Kennedy reports that the Australian state of Queensland could become the seventh largest contributor of greenhouse gases on the planet, behind only China, the US, India, Russia, Japan, and Germany, if plans to create nine huge coal mines go through.

Greenpeace Australia analyzed the proposed mines and found that they would release an extra 705 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. The International Energy Agency describes this as "catastrophic."
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What is "fracking?" It’s removing natural gas from the ground–and there is LOTS of it right here in the US, so if we produce cars that run on natural gas (as lots of trucks do already), then we can solve our oil dependency problems. HOWEVER, fracking uses LOTS of water (which we are ALSO short on) AND it is not necessarily emission-free.
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