Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future—A Documentary

• Saturday, February 6, 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• Monday, February 8, 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (Repeat)

Brew the coffee, turn on the radio, and check your electronic mail – you’re on your way to burning 20 pounds of coal for the day.  That’s how much coal the average American uses.  No matter what, we all have a stake in coal’s future.

The Environment Report presents an hour-long documentary on coal in America: Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future.

The coal and power industries want you to know about “clean coal,” but environmentalists say there’s no such thing.  This documentary will dig into those claims, and take your listeners on a journey from their light switch back to America’s coal fields.  We start at Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park Lab; visit a coal-burning power generating station; go down into a coal mine in downstate Illinois; travel to the rural counties of West Virginia where mountaintop mining is pulling on the state’s social fabric; and take a closer look at the technologies that promise to deliver coal into the new green economy.  The Environment Report’s documentary explores the effects of coal in our lives and in the lives of those who depend on coal for a living.

>> Find out more from the show's producers