Coal Fueled Power Plant To Bury Carbon Dioxide into the Earth

A coal- feuled power plant in West Virgina, Mountaineer, is the world's first to attemp to store carbon dioxide underground rather than spewing it out into the atmosphere. The goal is that the gas will remain deep underground for centuries rather than toxify the air. Countries such as China and India, with similar pollution problems, have been visiting the plant recently. Instead of buidling new, cleaner plants, industry experts claim it is more "feasible" to just update them. Enviormentalist experts who oppose using coal as feul claim that storing it underground could just be trading one set of problems, global warming and air pollution, for another, the poisioning of water supplies. Should the two mix, they could seep through the ground and spill poisionous materials on the earth. Many eviormentalists also complain that this is an attempt for big corporations making money off of coal to further prolong the switch to cleaner feuls, such as solar and wind power. Michael Morris, chairman of American Electric Power, even admitted that he believes the use of coal will be around for years to come and that "retrofitting" will be nessecary. Furthermore, if Congress should pass a law withing the next few years requiring more cutbacks on emissions, coal companies could store up to 90 percent of their carbon dioxide undergroud. Therefore, if Mountaineer and other local power plants can make this new method cost-effective, it will have a huge impact on the coal industry, further delaying and hindering the much needed transition to clean energy.
I believe that this method is a cop-out for greedy companies and people like Morris to keep making money at the Earth's expense. This is not some miracle way to stop emissions and still be dependent on coal; at best, it is just going to create more enviormental issues that our government will continue to not deal with. It is long overdue for the entire elimination of coals and fossil feuls and the introduction of only clean powers and feuls for useage. The techonology to make this happen is available, and many natural oils can be made into gas for cars. The only thing standing in the way is the greedy fat cat corporations in kahoots with politicans and lobbyists; these people only care about making money, no matter what the ulitmate cost is. I believe that within our lifetime, some natural castrophe will occur, and the enviromentalists, such as Al Gore, will get to say 'I told you so' to all the conservative politicans whose only concern was making money at the expense of the Earth and the American people.
Here is the link for the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/earth/22coal.html?em