Many of America's coal-fired power plants lack widely available pollution controls for the highly toxic metal mercury, and mercury emissions recently increased at more than half of the country's 50 largest mercury-emitting power plants, according to a report Wednesday.

The nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project reported that five of the 10 plants with the highest amount of mercury emitted are in Texas. Plants in Georgia, Missouri, Alabama, Pennsylvania and Michigan also are in the top 10.

Mercury, I should add, that eventually finds its way into your body and the bodies of your kids where it does bad things, dude:

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury pollution, generating more than 40 percent of U.S. emissions. Mercury released into the air settles in rivers and lakes, where it moves through the food chain to the fish that people eat.

Mercury exposure can harm the brain development of infants and children. Each year more than 300,000 babies may have an increased risk of learning disabilities as a result of exposure to mercury before birth, the report said.

Health effects of mercury. Mercury exposure at high levels can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system of people of all ages. Research shows that most people's fish consumption does not cause a health concern. However, it has been demonstrated that high levels of methylmercury in the bloodstream of unborn babies and young children may harm the developing nervous system, making the child less able to think and learn.

Next time you go to the doctor, maybe you should have yourself checked for toxic mercury levels. You might be surprised by what you find.

Mercury can affect nearly all your organs, especially the brain, heart, kidneys, and gut.

... Many chronic diseases may be caused or worsened by mercury, including neurologic disease, ADHD, autism, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, and more.

Make sure the test is done right, however.

The only way to find out your total body load of mercury is to take a medication with sulfur molecules that binds to the mercury like fly paper. This is called DMSA or DMPS.

This test should ONLY be done by a trained physician and involves taking one dose of this medicine, followed by a 6- or 24-hour urine collection to see how much comes out.

And, tell your congress critter and the White House to start cracking down on mercury emissions by utilities that burn coal but which have refused to update their plants to add the best technology to limit those emissions.

Environmental Integrity Project Senior Attorney Ilan Levin said: "Despite years of promises, the electric power industry has barely made a dent in its mercury emissions this decade. This slow progress is nowhere near the levels that would be achieved if all plants installed modern pollution controls. The nation's power plants are not even close to meeting the levels that EPA forecasted under a weak Bush Administration power plant mercury rule that was subsequently thrown out by a federal court."

Glen Hooks, regional director, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign said: "Texans and other Americans do not need to live with the dangerous risks posed by mercury pollution from power plants. Pollution controls that dramatically reduce mercury emissions are widely available, and are already being used at many power plants. But, until the public and policymakers hold the electric power industry to its promises to shut down or clean up the nation's oldest and dirtiest plants, Americans will continue to bear unnecessary health and environmental costs."

As for clean coal? Don't get me started. There's no such beastie out there.

In December, hundreds of acres of Roane County in eastern Tennessee were buried under a billion gallons of toxic coal sludge after the collapse of one of the T.V.A.’s containment ponds. It was an accident waiting to happen and an alarm bell for Congress and federal regulators. [...]

Just as the T.V.A. was dealing with this mess, Lacy Thornburg, a federal district judge in North Carolina, ordered the giant utility to reduce emissions from four coal-fired power plants that had been sending pollution into North Carolina.

There is an ad campaign however.

The campaign has been paid for by Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, which bills itself as the voice of “over 150,000 community leaders from all across the country.” Among those leaders, according to ABEC’s website, are an environmental consultant, an interior designer, and a “complimentary healer.” Other, arguably louder, voices in the group include the world’s biggest mining company (BHP Billiton), the biggest U.S. coal mining company (Peabody Energy), the biggest publicly owned U.S. electric utility (Duke Energy), and the biggest U.S. railroad (Union Pacific). ABEC — whose domain name is licensed to the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a coal-industry group — merged with CEED on April 17 to form the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

They’re bankrolling the “Clean Coal” campaign to the tune of $35 million this year alone. That’s a little less than the tobacco industry spent on a successful fight against antismoking legislation in 1998, and almost triple what health insurers paid for the “Harry and Louise” ads that helped kill health care reform in the early 1990s. In addition to the ads, the “Clean Coal” campaign has so far also sponsored two presidential election debates (where, critics noted, no questions about global warming got asked).

I know, China is worse, but they are also the world's largest investor in alternative renewable energy.

China invested $34.5 billion in wind turbines, solar panels and other low-carbon energy technologies in 2009, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said Wednesday in London. The U.S. spent about half as much last year, or $18.6 billion, slipping to second.

So the US has no excuse for the greatest nation of the world reducing and eventually eliminating coal as a means of providing energy, for that energy comes at a very high cost: the health and well being of our children and ourselves.