President Obama recently announced that his administration is initiating a comprehensive strategy to strengthen the United States’ energy independence while making the future a bit cleaner.
Obama met with both Republican and Democrat governors recently to lay out measures that will work interchangeably to boost biofuel production (like biodiesel) and reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign sources of energy.
In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a long-term standard that will ensure 36 billion gallons of fuel by 2022. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is on board as well with a commitment to provide financing to increase conversion of biomass to bioenergy.
The name clean coal can sound counterintuitive, but clean coal technologies are being billed as a big step to keep our future pollution free, or reduced. The United States relies heavily on coal and domestic coal helps keep us independent but coal is very dirty and produces a lot of carbon which many scientists believe contributes to the greenhouse effect.
The presidential proposition is to put more resources into clean coal technology which includes special carbon exhaust traps on power plant or factory smokestacks to collect this dirty carbon. The president is calling for commercial demonstration projects by 2016.
