The article talked about one plant in particular... Wisconsin Energy Corp. (WEC)'s... That's WEC for all you homegamers... It was the Pleasant Prarie coal plant, which burns 13,000 tons of Powder River Basin coal, which is relatively cleaner than the stuff they pull out of Appalachia daily... WEC has a new pilot project that uses chilled ammonia to try capture the CO2 emissions from burning coal. In the lab, the process would capture 90% of carbon emissions. It sounds great, right?... But, in the actual application, the company managing the test said that the project was only grabbing about 1% of the greenhouse gasses released at the plant... and still consumes too much energy to be effective.

According to the article, Wisconsin Energy's plant, which is one of the cleanest coal plants in the country, still spits out as much CO2 annually as 1.7 million cars.

It doesn't sound promising to me.

Of course, Wisconsin Energy is doing other things to reduce its carbon footprint, as the State of Wisconsin has passed a law requiring 8.5% of retail electricity sources must come from renewable energy sources by 2015.

The company completed the largest wind farm in Wisconsin in 2008, ahead of schedule and under budget. It has a capacity of 1.765 megawatts. WEC also acquired a second wind site in East Central Wisconsin, and expects to have a wind farm with a capacity to generate between 130 and 200 megawatts online by 2012.

Wisconsin Energy is also investing in more gas-fired units, seeking regulatory approval to build 50 megawatts of biomass generation. At the same time, it intends to retire 116 megawatts of coal capacity from two generating units by the end of 2012.

I don't know about you, but this thing... it is just everyday in the news... "clean coal"... cleaner coal. Is it even feasible?... Is it just a pipedream?...

And, for that, there's no better person to talk to than Gale Klappa, the CEO of Wisconsin Energy... Mr. Klappa, welcome to Mad Money... good to see you.

You know, Gale, you have been terrific, and WEC has been... you've just been a great stock to own and the best in the utility business... so far, they've all been hit except for yours really. Thank you so much for coming on the show...

Okay, that's Gale Klappa... he's the chairman, president and CEO of Wisconsin Energy Corp. (WEC), perhaps the most forward-looking energy company in the country, and now you have heard that the clean coal situation is still not viable.