"Clean coal" spin by any other name is still spin. In other words, the coal industry has scrapped one front group name for another, as if we wouldn't figure it out.

The coal industry's $35 million spin machine , Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), is now the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). This is the result of a merger between the ABEC and another coal industry interest group, the Center for Energy and Economic Development (CEED).

Power generation giant Duke Energy can't talk the green talk, without walking the green walk on climate change.

Check out our online petition at the end of this post. 

Business Week ran a story recently highlighting US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) members who appear to be playing both sides of the fence when it comes to the issue of global warming and greenhouse gas reduction.

 

UK columnist George Monbiot penned a piece today on the UK government's clean coal "great green scam."

The scam Monbiot is referring to revolves around the notion of the potential for coal-fired electrical generation plants to bury their produced carbon in the ground, so called carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Large scale CCS is expensive and unproven technology being used by coal enthusiasts to convince governments and the public that coal is not a worry when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

It seems that come hell or high water, the coal industry will do about anything to convince us that "clean coal" technology is an affordable energy solution.

They're even willing to burn hundreds of millions of US taxpayers dollars to convince us.

Today, the US Department of Energy announced it will pull out of a $1.8 billion "clean coal" demonstration project called FutureGen.

So what does a multi-million dollar PR campaign trying to put a green shiny face on the dirtiest energy sector look like?

A coal industry front group called the "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices" (ABEC), is one of the lead sponsors for tonight's CNN Democratic presidential debate.

ThinkProgress wonders whether candidates will be grilled on where they stand on the issue of "clean coal" electrical generation - which by all accounts remains the dirtiest form of energy production in the United States.

At least ABEC is honest about who funds them, their website states that, "primary funding for ABEC’s outreach efforts come from America’s coal-based electricity providers." And a list of their supporters can be found on their site here.

But any praise for their attempts at disclosure ends there.