Back in my 2008 congressional campaign, a couple of gents introduced themselves to me at one of my public events. They had hats, T-shirts and other giveaway items all stamped “support clean coal.” I admit, as a person with a fairly strong environmental background, I hadn’t heard of this “clean coal” before, so I was happy to talk with them.

The clean coal folks were claiming with new technology rolling out, coal could be burned as cleanly as any other fuel. Even the mined high-sulfur coal could, they asserted, be safely and cleanly burned in U.S. power plants. They seemed nice, so I did a bit of research and it is true advances have been made in capturing or otherwise avoiding the really nasty outcomes of burning coal, but the bottom line is that there is no truly “clean coal.” You can make coal burning less bad, but it will never be good. Remember coal was the energy source that fueled the industrial revolution, albeit not without a heavy cost, and it is still vital for a large share of our nation’s electrical generation. Hence the industry’s interest in finding a truly “clean” version of coal, an effort that has proven ultimately unsuccessful, at least from a non-coal-industry point of view. There is “cleaner coal” but that’s about it.

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To get a sense of the importance of coal in the west, one need look no further than my oft-favorite section of Colorado Politics, the Out West Roundup. A recent story there noted a U.S. appeals court recently struck down a moratorium on the government issuing coal leases to companies that want to mine on federal lands. Back in the Obama presidency, the Environmental Protection Agency issued guidance that banned further sales of such coal leases, and other than a blip during the Trump administration (when Trump unsurprisingly gutted the EPA and rescinded the ban), coal companies have not been able to buy federal leases for years, at least until the aforementioned appeals court decision.

Though this would seem to be bad news for the environmental community and good news for coal companies, the court’s decision has hardly elicited more than a yawn from the environmental communities and the coal industry. That is because quite a bit has changed during the past couple of decades, and making coal leases available on federal lands may prove as relatively unimportant as, say, allowing the makers of horse-pulled carts to be unregulated (are they unregulated? Not sure, but you take my point). No one really cares that much about possible new leases because coal, like horse carts, is increasingly and inevitably yesterday’s technology.

A couple of years back my lovely wife and I were driving back to Colorado from a trip up to Devil’s Tower (well worth the trip!) and we often went through mile after mile of vast open-pit coal mines. The infrastructure was amazing, and it is not hard to understand why coal has been such an important industry for Wyoming. But as you get to the southern part of the state, you can see the future. Not far from Cheyene, where I spent my first Air Force tour, you now see dozens and dozens of huge wind turbines generating electrical power.

Wyoming, the least populated and among the reddest of the red states, has gone all-in for wind power. Having lived there for five years, I can assure you the wind is seemingly always blowing. If you want to have, say, a kite flying contest, Cheyenne should be your headquarters. The Three Buttes Windpower operation near Glenrock has 66 of the colossal wind turbines, while a smaller operation near Casper has 11. You’ll find 79 more turbines near Medicine Bow. While coal still produces nearly 73% of the power to Wyoming’s electric grid, wind is up to 22% and is increasing.

We in Colorado are no slouches when it comes to wind power. Nearly 2,000 turbines spin happily away in Colorado, generating at present 14% of our state’s power.

If you drive south through Pueblo on Interstate 25, you’ll see lots and lots of wind turbine parts on the grounds of Vestas Wind Energy company. And if you are lucky, you’ll see those amazing trucks that transport the giant blades and towers of the turbines hitting the road to where their products are being installed. And that means jobs, not only in Pueblo for Vestas, but also anywhere turbines are installed. Those jobs — installing and maintaining turbines — are jobs that can never be outsourced overseas. Oh, and Vestas recently partnered with Xcel Energy to build 300 more turbines, and those will produce an additional 600 megawatts of electricity.

Now, that doesn’t mean there is no role for coal, as renewable energy sources cannot instantly switch on and take the full load of American power consumption. But it is a start. Back in 1783, when he was minister to France, Benjamin Franklin watched the first manned hot air balloon flight. Franklin was fascinated watching the balloon lift off, with the two passengers waiving to the crowd. Later, Franklin was asked of what possible use is a balloon? His reply was “of what possible use is a newborn baby?”

Dr. Franklin knew his stuff and understood technology can take some time to fully develop. We are in the infancy of renewable energy, and it would be quite foolish to discard such technologies on the grounds they haven’t instantly fixed our energy problems. While wind turbines today only provide a relatively small portion of our nation’s electricity, please recall, if, say, you are confronted by “clean coal” representatives, that wind technology, along with other nascent renewable technologies, are scientific and industrial babies. Of what possible use is wind?

Stay tuned.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.