Obama's energy solution includes spending $150 billion over the next 10 years on "climate friendly energy". Much of that money will go towards the development of clean coal technology. His plan also includes implementing a CO2 cap and trade program, which will make coal less competitive than nuclear, wind, and solar energy, but more competitive than energy from oil and gas.

With Obama as president, the EPA has finally decided to listen to a supreme court ruling forcing it to consider regulating CO2 emissions. Given the environmentalist views of the new regime, its highly likely the EPA will decide to regulate. Given that reality, some coal companies have already pulled their permit applications, or are at least considering doing so. The only challenger that will remain standing is clean coal.

Carbon sequestration offers the promise to capture or greatly reduce the amount of CO2 discharged into the atomsphere. The problem with carbon sequestration is that once the CO2 is sequestered it needs to be diposed of. If clean coal facilities were located in areas with dimished oil production the CO2 could be used to improve the well field pressure thereby improving the amount of recoverable oil. This alternative represents nothing more than a bridge technology. The reality is that FOSSIL based fuels unlock carbon that has been sequestered for tens of millions of years. We cannot depend on nature to absorb and convert the volume of CO2 emissions associated to fossil fuels.