Clean Coal is an oxymoron

This are just a few of the pollutants in the fumes of the Boardman Coal Plant. This image may be reference another time but the problem is here, now and real.

We share a sky that does not recognize national borders and therefore we share both its beauty and its corruption.

This is a series of woodcuts that grew out of my outrage at a local green washing campaign sponsored by Portland General Electric. PGE has a media campaign that extols their wind power and green energy while in realty, wind is only a small percentage of the electricity is generated and 40% is comes from a coal plant, Boardman. This antiquated plant was grandfathered in before the Clean Air Act and produces an astonishing array of pollutants that create a haze that hovers over the Columbia River. A miasma containing unsafe levels of mercury, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and tons of particulate matter is continually released contributing to global warming and public health concerns.

Boardman is not just an individual power plant, it is also a symbol of the national and international implications of coal power. Cheap energy is often very expensive.