CHARLESTON — A coalition of environmental groups has launched a new advertising campaign aimed at what they say is a myth: clean coal.

The first advertisement in the campaign is a video that features a worker who says, "Clean coal. Heard a lot about it, so let's take a tour of this state-of-the-art clean coal facility."

The worker dons a hard hat and walks through a door marked "clean coal facility" - and enters a moonscape-type wasteland.

"Take a good, long look," the worker shouts over machinery that is nowhere in sight. "This is today's clean coal technology."

The ad closes with a printed sentence: "In reality, there's no such thing as clean coal."

Environmental groups that include the Alliance for Climate Protection, which is chaired by Al Gore; the Sierra Club; and the Natural Resources Defense Council reportedly are sponsors of the ad.

The ad is aimed directly at campaigns by the coal industry and its supporters, such as Walker Equipment's "Yes, Coal" advertisements. The Belle company has been running television ads and has bought billboards throughout the Kanawha Valley that tout, "Clean, carbon neutral coal."

Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said today he has heard about the ad but has not seen it.

"My concern about it is, first of all I think it's so typical - what they do is throw stones but they don't offer any alternatives whatsoever for achieving energy security for America. It's as though they want us to continue to rely and depend on the Middle East for all of our energy needs.

"As it's described to me, it sounds as though it's the hypocritical approach that completely looks down the nose at the people in West Virginia who work in and depend on coal as well as in other coal-producing states," Raney said.

"Hypocritical because I suspect that the organizations that are behind this ad will make all of the claims and then climb on their jet planes and completely disregard their particular effect on the environment and whether they're willing to change their lifestyle as opposed to punishing our people here in West Virginia.

"We've said all along that America's energy security is critical and coal is an American fuel mined by Americans and used by Americans," Raney said.

"We welcome everyone to join in to try to make it better each day. Why some want to take our peoples' jobs is beyond me. We've got enough smart people in this state and country that we can achieve energy independence to everyone's satisfaction."

The debate about coal's future seems to have become more polarized than ever.

In a speech to the Tug Valley Mining Institute in Williamson last month, the Williamson Daily News quoted Massey Energy Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship as saying coal's opponents are wrong.

"People are cowering away from being criticized by people that are our enemies," he said. "Would we be upset if Osama Bin Laden was critical of us?"

Blankenship used terms like "greeniacs" to describe those who oppose coal.

The coal industry needs to start standing up for itself to counter the negative statements being made by politicians, special interests and the press, Blankenship said.

"They can say what they want about climate change, but the only thing melting in this country that matters is our financial system and our economy," he said.

Blankenship said the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the United States is negligible compared to the damage done by other countries.

"If (U.S. House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi thinks that decreasing CO2 in this country is going to save the polar bears, she's crazy," he said. "If CO2 emissions are going to kill the polar bears, it's going to happen. What we do here is not going to do it."

The environment is a concern but only one concern, Blankenship said.

"I talk a lot about the total environment," he said. "Yes, we need to breathe clean air and have fresh water in the streams. We need to have trees and all that, but we need to be able to send our children to school. That's a total environment."

Blankenship argued that the quality of life is improved because coal is burned to generate low-cost electricity.

"Anywhere you go, low-cost electricity, the creation of energy, of jobs, of an economy, ultimately leads to an improvement in the environment," he said. "There is no place in the world that has a good environment where people live on two dollars a day with no electricity."

The debate about the future role of coal has been fierce ever since the 2006 release of Al Gore's award-winning movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." Other attacks on coal have followed.

In March 2007 it was revealed that Chesapeake Energy was behind a massive "Coal is Filthy" advertising campaign in Texas. The campaign was designed to persuade Texas officials to favor natural gas over coal in their public policy decisions.

"Clean coal" - if defined as coal burned without creating emissions - does not yet exist.

A much-ballyhooed federal initiative to build a near-zero-emissions coal-fired plant, called FutureGen, was scrapped in January because of increasing costs. In an interview with the Daily Mail in August, Michael Morris, American Electric Power's chairman, president and chief executive officer, called it an "absolutely silly decision."

American Electric Power, which provides electricity across southern West Virginia through its Appalachian Power subsidiary, won approval earlier this year from the West Virginia Public Service Commission to build an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle or IGCC coal-fired power plant in Mason County. The plant would greatly reduce emissions because coal would be turned into synthetic gas and carbon dioxide would be buried underground.

Although the project was approved here, the Virginia State Corporation Commission turned it down, saying AEP's $2.23 billion cost estimate dates back to 2006 and is not credible. The company has said it is looking at what options it might have to pursue the project.

Meanwhile, AEP is moving ahead with a $70 million carbon sequestration pilot project at its Mountaineer Plant. The project will capture a slipstream of carbon dioxide off the plant's exhaust and bury it underground.