But my grandfather worked at a coal fired plant. I've been to the strip mine. I've seen the trains that run continuously to truck it in.
From a layman's perspective it seems like an incredibly efficient process. Is there any chemical refinement going on at all? All that I saw looked mechanical (but I was very young).
I would guess that it would take many years of Solar before it broke even, in an environmental impact sense, with "cleaner" coal.
I think ultimately solar probably wins. But the initial cost seems like it must be orders of magnitude higher.
That said, I'd get solar if I could. Just not my highest home-improvement priority and I'd have to do something about the trees shading the south side of my roof. I like my trees. :-(
OTOH it would be nice if there were a high power (~2KV), affordable (<$2,000?), silent wind turbine solution to supplement our grid power.