The filmmaking brothers, popular for such films as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and Academy Award-winner No Country For Old Men, were invited to work on the project by The Reality Coalition, an environmental group, and offshoot of Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, dedicated to debunking the notion of “clean coal”–at least for now.

 

“Coal cannot be called ‘clean’ until its CO2 emissions are captured and stored safely,” the group’s Web site reads. The Reality Coalition does not entirely oppose the idea of “clean coal”; it simply does not believe it exists yet.

 

Efforts to develop coal capture-and-storage technology have been underway for years. The general idea is to capture the greenhouse emissions and store them underground, where they will theoretically be harmless. Some groups, such as the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy research organization, blame the coal industry for not putting enough money and research into developing carbon capture and storage technologies. The organization claims that “This technology would allow power plants to capture 85 percent or more of their carbon dioxide emissions and permanently store them underground in geological formations.”

 

The coal industry has also done its share of campaigning. The industry spent about $40 million last year on television advertisements and lobbying efforts to promote the idea and possibility of producing environmentally-friendly coal.

 

The Reality Coalition is ready to match those efforts and already promises a whole series of Coen brothers ads, which were actually created by the Crispin Porter + Bogusky advertising agency.

 

The Coen Brothers Do Clean Coal (by Tom Zeller, New York Times)

Coen Brothers Target US Coal Industry (by Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian)