“We’re going to continue to rely on coal for a significant portion of our base power load, and the way that we do that is by investing in new cleaner technology and shuttering or retrofitting older plants,” Kaine said. Coal makes up half the nation’s electricity supply.
But clean-coal technology itself, while touted as a way to keep coal in the mix for decades to come, is also decades away, said Bryan Hannegan, vice president of research and development at the Electric Power Research Institute.
“You don’t really have what you would like in the way of a coal option that would make a lot of sense,” he said, adding that with aggressive research and development an average size coal plant using carbon capture and storage isn’t feasible until 2020 at the earliest.
When it Comes to Coal, No Simple Party Differences
