An excellent news story by Alan Zarembo in the Los Angeles Times begins with the problem:
Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the crack cocaine of the developing world.
But along the way, it also mentions the hope — not the promise, but the hope — for a solution.
Another possibility is a process known as integrated gasification,
which converts coal into a cleaner-burning gas, capturing emissions in
the process.
Coal plants in China and India could eventually be retrofitted with such systems.
"We need a bolt-on solution for those existing plants," said
Stanford’s [Michael] Wara. "It’s going to be very difficult to tell those people
to shut down those plants."
File it under topics for further research…