Dirty Business

Dirty Business: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for Our Energy Future is a 2009 documentary film directed by Peter Bull and produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting. The film investigates the true costs of our dependence on coal for electricity in the age of climate change. Central to the movie is the feasibility of "clean coal," a high-profile topic of the 2008 presidential campaign and a central element of President Obama's energy policy. Narrated by Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell, Dirty Business includes interviews with carbon capture and storage researcher and advocate Julio Friedman, Rainforest Action Network executive director Rebecca Tarbotton, and others, including a Kansas cowboy saving his ranch with win power; docutors tabulating the health impacts of coal pollution on newborns in China, and innovators making a southern Rust Belt factory energy efficient with the aim of stealing jobs back from China. The film also investigates the coal lobby's multi-million dollar clean coal marketing campaign.

The film's run time is 89 minutes.

The project received funding from The 11th Hour Project, Cow Hollow Fund, Deer Creek Foundation, Educational Foundation of America, Fledgling Fund and the Fred Gellert Family Foundation.

The consulting producer is Alex Gibney, producer/director of the 2008 Academy Award winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.