Well he says basically that he will impose cap and trade in every unit of carbon emitted, then goes to acknowledge that that would bankrupt any new plants that were to be built, in short making it fiscally impossible to build a new one. Now, I don’t know if we are still building coal fired plants or how many.
The cap and trade bill that came up in the congress, was beat down by via bi-partisan effort as it was recognized as a industry and job killer.
He appears to be all over the pace as the article below describes.
Three years later, with Obama now a candidate for president, his embrace of southern Illinois and its dominant industry is showing signs of strain. Obama finds himself caught between his advocacy of huge federal subsidies for liquefied coal for transportation fuel, a technology that the Illinois coal industry views as a salvation, and environmental groups that reject it as a boondoggle that would set back efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the fight against global warming.
After co-sponsoring legislation earlier this year for billions of dollars in subsidies for liquefied coal, Obama more recently began qualifying his support in ways that have left both environmentalists and coal industry officials unsure where he stands. His shift has helped shape this month's Senate debate over how to reduce both dependence on foreign oil and carbon dioxide emissions; on Tuesday, he voted against one proposal to boost liquefied coal and for a more narrowly worded one. Both failed.
More broadly, Obama's contortions on coal point to the limits of the role he likes to assume, that of a unifier who can appeal across traditional lines and employ a "new kind of politics" to solve problems. In reaching out to the coal industry, some observers say, he may have been trying to show that he is a different sort of Democrat, but the gesture had the look of old-style politicking and put him in a corner, where he wound up alienating some on both sides of the issue.
"He was trying to throw a bone to the southern Illinois coal interests . . . and was surprised when people started saying, 'What the heck are you doing?' " said Frank O'Donnell, president of the environmental group Clean Air Watch. "That's a rookie mistake for a presidential candidate, to think you can get in the middle of a controversial issue and no one will notice."
Coal Fuels A Debate Over Obama - washingtonpost.com
and here in March....
Obama: Green Coal?
Published by Alexander M. Tinker, March 21st, 2008 global warming
Co-authored by Alex Tinker and Jenny Bedell-Stiles
West Virginia, Thursday, March 20th: “We could be investing in renewable sources of energy, and in clean coal technology, and creating up to 5 million new green jobs in the bargain, including new clean coal jobs.”
Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s words yesterday were as hard to swallow as the sulfur dioxide rich output of dirty coal-fired power plants. The clean coal mythology must be stopped. Coal isn’t clean, it isn’t green and it has no place in the renewable-energy future we must rapidly make into a renewable-energy present if we are to avoid the worst-case scenarios of global warming.
Today, Friday March 21st, he made no mention of this fuel to thousands in Portland, Oregon. He talked about the clean energy revolution. He gave an anti-nuke shout out (to our aging hippies). He touched on cap and trade. He even talked about green jobs revitalizing our economy.
There was no mention of deriving green jobs from clean coal. Sure, it’s common (and savvy) for our political leaders to alter their message by location. But we, the climate positive movement, are a united and connected force and we’re listening to the differences in message Barack is sending us. While not contradictory, he’s telling folks from each region what we want to hear.
This morning, Barack said that as president, he would tell the American people what we need to hear, and not just what we want to hear. Barack, as the next president of the United States, you need to start telling us that coal must be weaned from our energy generation sources.
Coal has a powerful lobby in Washington, and there are important general election states with substantial coal industries. The climate movement needs to think long and hard about what would become of all those coal families if we got our coal moratorium.
Articulating the vision of an inclusive green economy to the people who stand to lose the most from the necessary changes is critical to the success of this movement. Articulating to the new President in 2009 our firm demand for aggressive action to tackle climate change is critical to the survival of the human race.
Obama: Green Coal? « It’s Getting Hot In Here
hes all over the map on the place on this issue it appears and this is all I could find on his site as to cap and trade-
Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050
• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
The Obama-Biden cap-and-trade policy will require all pollution credits to be auctioned, and proceeds will go to investments in a clean energy future, habitat protections, and rebates and other transition relief for families.
• Make the U.S. a Leader on Climate Change.
Obama and Biden will re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) -- the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate problem. They will also create a Global Energy Forum of the world’s largest emitters to focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need | New Energy for America
and
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issue...tFactSheet.pdf
pages 2 and 4 speak to coal, page 2 calling for a 100% cap and trade that is requiring an auction for all pollution emissions they release, no free trade off’sbetween co’s or industries....
Page 4 speaks to exporting climate friendly technologies, whatever that means as to clean coal.
pretty thin, no particulars at all.... etc. So I guess hes leaving us to parse his words through radio interviews and his mish mash of stances depending on where he is and to whom he is addressing at the moment.