China is Said to Be the Leader of Alternative Energy Generation - Perhaps Soon Clean-Coal Too?

It is amazing how much money we are spending putting in giant solar farms, giant wind farms, and yet we don't spend enough money upgrading our coal-fired plants to run the new clean coal technologies.
There are all sorts of ways to retrofit our coal-fired plants to bring them into compliance and improve the emissions air quality, and get them to a place of extremely low pollution output, one which is desirable amongst the environmentalists, the EPA, and other government regulators.
It seems the Department of Energy has given away tons of grants, and helped entrepreneurs and researchers find low-interest loans to take their innovations forward.
It also seems that our government has subsidized, and propped up, even mandated that alternative energy systems be used throughout our nation's grid.
If you are an environmentalist you applaud all these efforts, and you are quite happy with what the Obama Administration is doing.
No one can deny that clean air is a good thing, but before we go to hog wild we must understand that 60% of our nation's electricity is made from coal fired plants.
We just can't get rid of them tomorrow, otherwise there will have rolling blackouts throughout the nation, and that will cause havoc to our light and heavy manufacturing base, as well as shut down small businesses, retailers, schools, government offices, and make your life at home a living hell as you wait for the electricity to come back on.
Indeed, I know this because I lived in California during the last couple of decades where we had rolling blackouts.
Believe me it's no fun, and it seems rather unpredictable, and problematic, and it is one more thing as a businessperson you don't want to have to deal with on a regular basis.
The reality is if clean coal technologies exist, then we should be using them in the United States.
Unfortunately it's hard to get such upgrades approved because of the EIRS or environmental impact reports required, and they often cost tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the impending litigation and lawsuits that go along with them any time someone tries to upgrade an energy generation facility.
Nevertheless, China is putting in clean coal technology plants, and one has to ask how come we aren't? There was an interesting article recently in Bloomberg on June 26, 2011 titled "Clean Energy, Seamwell to Build $1.
5 Billion 'Clean Coal' Plant in Inner Mongolia" by Sally Bakewell.
The article stated; "China Energy Conservation & Environmental Protection Group, a state-owned project developer, will build a huge 'clean coal' plant in Inner Mongolia with U.
K.
-based Seamwell International Ltd.
The companies agreed to collaborate on the electric power plant that'll harvest its energy from gasified coal deep underground, the first commercial plant of its size in the world.
" Perhaps, we need to consider our future needs for energy, and what is most prudent in the present period, and then grow our energy generation future technologies as we move forward.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.