It examines the politics of FutureGen, including the Congressional report which concluded it was simply a public relations ploy. They interview many sources to give an unbiased look at the technological and political challenges, such as the unwillingness of most coal companies to invest in FutureGen.
I often hear clean coal being advocated as a "bridge technology," even by some environmentalists eager to sound reasonably compromising. My understanding is that a bridge technology is something available right now, while we wait for future solutions to develop. But carbon capture and sequestration technology isn't ready. Even the coal industry admits that it won't be usable on a large scale for at least a decade or two. According to an analysis mentioned in this report, it may not be ready until 2040.
In the real world, we need a bridge technology to start using now while we wait for clean coal to become viable. I suggest using a combination of more affordable and technologically proven alternatives we can start building and using immediately: solar, wind, geothermal, and efficiency projects. Even natural gas, while hardly an ideal solution, has existing capacity online that can quickly replace dirtier coal plants.
Clean coal isn't a bridge technology because it's not ready. It's more expensive than cleaner alternatives. It isn't proven. It isn't real. The sooner the public, environmentalists, and politicians can accept those realities, the sooner we can stop wasting resources on a gimmick which serves no purpose other than creating new markets for the coal industry.