In this speech, Barack Obama made it clear that he wants to explore "clean" coal options to save the planet, so he wooed Kentucky voters. But,

Both Obama and Clinton have rallied environmentalists with their promises to develop windmills, solar power and other renewable energy sources and order mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases from power plants to counter global warming.

It’s an energy policy that would seem to target coal, which produces half the country’s electricity but also nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, each year.

Instead, “clean coal” has become the mantra of both candidates. Some environmentalists are not too happy with that.

“They keep using the term ‘clean coal.’ That’s really an oxymoron,” snaps Brent Blackwelder, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “They absolutely are pandering the coal industry’s propaganda that clean coal is the hope of the future. There’s no such animal as clean coal.”

Other activists accept that this nation will always use coal, but they reject the mountaintop removal form of coal mining. I have been down there and have witnessed the destruction and clutter up close. Some areas look like they have been bombed and deserted. Appalachian Kentucky can be both magnificent and cheerless, depending on the time and place. Towns like Benham and Lynch (Harlan County) are of the mountain ghetto sort - unique enough to get your attention, yet spooky enough so that you don't stay too long because you just don't belong.

Here are some photos I took of a Kentucky coal plant.