It's a good ad.

I'm guessing another reason they're not drawing attention to this ad is because they don't want to be perceived as contesting Kentucky, or engaging Clinton, too heavily at this point, since he's now trying to shift the focus to McCain.

probably nothing can work in Kentucky & Virginia

Take a look at this from The Financial Times.

`Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.`

How is it possible after the Wright fiasco for anyone to harbour these notions?

Democracy... Gotta love it?

Calling Ben Hocking, Where are you Ben Hocking! :)

This shouldn't be about whether or not the ad is effective. Coal is not a clean energy at all. Via Think Progress, Clean coal is worst alt energy choice available.

Look, people who support Obama need to start to look at him critically. Instead of telling the blogosphere that Hillary is evil and McCain is an idiot, look inward just once. This is pandering, plain and simple. And if it is not, then all of the talk about Obama as an eco friendly revolutionary seems entirely premature.

I'm an Obama supporter and I *still* think this is a disgusting pander. IMO, "clean coal" technology R&D is a road to nowhere. We've looked at a number of technologies in that space, and there's no foreseeable price-performance advantage over, say, solar for electric power generation. Given that we don't have to mine for silicon to make PV panels or CSP modules, I'd hardly say there's a point to this kind of technology.

It is obvious that Obama isn't going to pander to Big Coal. And the people who work in those Kentucky coal mines know very well that the production has gone up, while the number of jobs in the coal industry has declined significantly.

While there has been a 22% increase in coal production from 1985-2005, there has been a corresponding DECREASE of 55% in the number of coal miners employed during that same period. Yet, the communities in those regions of coal mining continue to be devastated by the waste and sludge in their communities and waterways and water supplies.

As for the "Clean coal" misnomer and the magic of liquid coal (and Jim Bunning's big talk about the depth of his "economic background"), here is some information from the Sierra Club:

"Liquid coal creates almost double the carbon dioxide emissions per gallon as regular gasoline, and replacing just 10 percent of our nation's fuel with it would require a more than 40 percent increase in coal mining.

On top of those environmental damages, liquid coal needs billions of dollars of government subsidies and incentives to be viable, money that could be spent cleaning up our current use of coal and shifting toward cleaner sources of energy. Taxpayers gambled on liquid coal synfuels 30 years ago and lost billions of dollars, a lesson we should not have to learn twice."

On top of that, there is now a current effort underway to overturn "Section 526", a provision in last year's energy bill to prohibit federal agencies from entering into long-term purchasing contracts for fuels that are dirtier than conventional petroleum-based fuels.

This effort to overturn Section 526 is an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that is currently being marked up. The bill may get to the House floor by May 19.

Coal is filthy. Coal is deadly. Mining coal is destructive.

All true. You know what else is true?

You are rapidly running out of choices. No POTUS from either party will be able to spin oil from straw. The oil is running out. At present, no renewables are available to support our current lifestyle and standard of living.

I suggest you come up with a scientific, engineering, and practical substitute.

I suggest you start reading here:

http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~pel/environment/energy_pt04.html

I can't wait for a true discussion on energy for at long last people will not see this is a left vs right issue. This is not a Dem or GOP issue. It is an American issue.

To Present:

If you're still whining about claims made in Iowa, then there's no doubt whatsoever why your candidate is 160 delegates away from being a 2008 afterthought.

Coal "technology." That's a good one.

Oh well, it was nice to have enjoyed the last few months thinking Obama was different, that he was actually going to challenge the grip corporate greed has on this country.

To hell with him.

I disagree with Obama on nuclear power, clean coal, and his stance on Israel. And I'm sure as things move on, I'll find other points of disagreement. But how do you cram over half of all the voters in the U.S. into one tidy box with everyone thinking the same. It all comes back to the two-party dilemma. It forces politicians to compromise in order to achieve a majority.

With proportional representation, you make coalitions with other parties that have similar interests, but also stark differences. Our politicians have to represent all of the diverse opinions that make up a majority and take the heat for it. Or just get the support of a minority and fade away.

A sad, political reality built into our constitution.

a shorter version of my critique of affirmative action:

AA bar pass rates at HBCs like Howard hover around 50%, and even at elite law skools are no higher than 60%. But at fourth tier law skools with insignificant AA enrollment, the bar pass rates are in the 80-85% range.

Something is surely wrong here.

Yes, compared to the 0% bar pass rate for monkeys, 50% doesn't seem so bad, but surely that is not the proper standard.

and surely law skools and law firms are mistaken to privilege race over competence. Certainly, the obligation of the profession is to provide the best possible legal counsel, not to provide legal counsel based on ethnicity.

Coming back to the topic, coal technology, clean or not, is here to stay in the developing nations for another few decades because of the cost of other sources of energy like oil, nuclear etc. As rightly pointed out, nuclear plants don't spring overnight. Deal with it (coal), instead burying your heads in the sand.

Globalization, ironically for all its capitalist connotations, is proving to be truly socialistic, in that the developing world is waking up to its potential and to its rightful claim on the world's sources.

A simple analogy is the water at two different heights, finding the balance when the plug is pulled and globalization is that plug.

Someone upthread mentioned about US going down. I would put a positive spin and say that the rest of the world is catching up. This will mean US reducing its profligacy (which is misleadingly stated as "standard of living") and the developing world achieving the basic minimum of food, water, energy and housing security for its citizens.

Just how do we eliminate coal powered electric plants within the foreseeable future?

Folks, I am as green as anybody, and we need to do what we can to clean coal up and sequester carbon dioxide, but I just don't see us turning off most of our lights anytime soon.

The present crisis is with oil. Coal is part of our solving the oil crisis. The real obscenities are oil fired furnaces and power plants. Maybe we can eliminate reliance on coal in the future, but right now it is a giant part of our energy mix.

I have got to stop poting from my Treo . . .