Given my demographic - under 35, politically active, environmentally-conscious news watcher in the Washington, DC area - I've found myself caught in the middle of a vicious public relations battle between those for and against "clean coal technology." The television ads perpetually run on CNN, The Daily Show, and other news networks I watch regularly. Both ad campaigns rely on political celebrities - Al Gore on one side, Barack Obama on the other - to brand the message that clean coal is or is not the wave of the future. So who is right, Gore or Obama?

The opponents of clean coal behind one side of the ad war represent a coalition of environmental non-profits. Led by Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, NRDC, and the National Wildlife Federation, the “Reality Coalition” aims to convince Americans there's no such thing as clean coal. The group recently launched an ad series to brand their message that coal power is dirty and that clean coal is a myth.

In their first ad, a man in a hard hat walks through a door to the middle of the desert and proclaims "this is today's clean coal technology!" The ad ends by stating that "In reality, there's no such thing as clean coal technology."

The opposition's ad promotes clean coal technology by replaying a clip of President-elect Barack Obama touting the potential of clean coal during the primaries. Behind the ad sits a coalition of the industries involved in producing electricity from coal, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), who lovingly refer to themselves as Americaspower.org.

Both ads are very convincing, and even with a fair amount of knowledge under my belt about coal-produced energy, I've found myself wondering if I'm current enough with the latest research to make my decision about clean coal technology. I suspect others are running into the same question: who should I trust?

On the basis of past experience alone, siding against industry seems the smarter bet. After all, tobacco, alcohol, nuclear power and firearms makers have all led huge campaigns to assure the public their products are safe, and history has proven otherwise.

A look at the facts reveals the debate isn't as clear cut as one may think. In reality, clean coal technologies are being developed that dramatically reduce the amount of emissions coming from America's most abundant and dirtiest non-renewable energy source. However, the degree of clean that can be attained using coal is yet to be proven.

Before diving into the technological advancements, some terminology exploration is needed. To clarify, the term clean coal technology is an umbrella term used to oversimplify the process of stripping out the air contaminants (carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury) produced when coal is burned to create electricity. But just how clean does the process need to be before being designated clean coal is undefined. That means any measure used to strip these contaminants out of the coal-fired emissions qualifies as clean coal technology. 

At a basic level, clean coal technologies have been deployed to reduce emissions from coal-fired electricity generating plants by 70 percent since 1970. These technologies typically involve washing the coal with chemicals prior to use to eliminate the potential emissions before burning it; "scrubbing" the coal emissions inside the flue (chimney) with limestone and water to remove sulfur dioxide, a major cause of acid rain; manipulating the combustion process to strip out nitrogen oxides, a cause of ground-level ozone; and charging particles with an electrical field and then capturing them on collection plates to strip of particulate matter harmful to the lungs which gives coal emissions that black coloration.  

Still, much work needs to be done, and in a sense, making coal into a clean energy source is analogous to fitting a square peg in a round hole. At some point, you need to ask the question: is it worth the effort? Wouldn't the billions being used to develop clean coal be better spent turning a renewable energy source like solar or wind power into something more economically viable?

Coal advocates say yes, given America's vast supply of clean coal and the fact it currently provides half of the nation's electricity, it's worth the effort.

Opponents say coal is not the answer; that not only is it impossible to eliminate all the associated environmental impacts from coal - the leading source of carbon dioxide emissions in the world, but it is also a finite resource that will one day run out.

In a sense, both sides are correct. Global energy needs are too high to be fulfilled by renewable sources at the moment. So coal is needed to provide a bridge to the future, where energy sources are all renewable and non-polluting. Until we reach this utopia, some degree of reliance on coal-burning power plants is a necessary evil. And to lessen the evil, clean coal technologies like those list above as well as those in development will be needed to supply energy to the 9 billion people expected to be on the planet by the year 2050.

Just what will be the clean coal technologies of the future remains a bit nebulous. Technologies seem to center around scrubbing out a greater percentage of emissions using methods mentioned above, extracting carbon dioxide emissions and storing or releasing them either into the ground of ocean (sequestration), or extracting gas from coal which can be burned much cleaner at higher temperatures.

Clean Coal Technologies, Inc claims to have a patent-pending method of reducing coal emissions from the dirtier low-grade coal common in China by up to 90 percent and recently struck a deal with the Chinese government to build the largest clean coal plant in the world. The technology allows for the coal to be heated to extreme temperatures, during which time contaminants are removed.

Similarly, the Department of Energy is currently funding 57 clean coal demonstration projects, some of which have been successful, some of which have not.

What is clear is that the potential for cleaner coal is absolutely there, although the environmental impacts of sequestering carbon dioxide and relying on chemicals to strip out air emissions from coal burning are themselves additional concerns requiring more research.  More difficult to swallow is if coal will ever truly be a clean energy source. The past has shown that a reliance on technology to solve one problem creates a new one somewhere else. In the long term, renewable energies like wind, wave, solar, and geothermal power must be developed and advanced to replace our current and future reliance on coal for electricity. But for now, it looks like we're all stuck breathing in the smoke being blown from coal plants and the clean coal ad war.