Clean coal's time has come

"Unless we deal with coal, we're not going to be able to deal with climate change," says WIRED contributing editor Charles Mann, whose cover story in the magazine's April issue tackles the tricky issue of 'clean coal.'

Clean coal sounds like an oxymoron: coal-fired plants are responsible for over 70% of the world's carbon dioxide, producing 10.4 billion tons per year, according to Mann. Coal also produces the vast majority of black carbon, the second-biggest contributor to climate change.