"it would produce more CO2 stripping hydrogen from water than it would if you just burned the coal directly."
I believe what he said was that the carbon that is produced is easier to trap, not that there was less produced. Not certain what the technical reasons for that are.
Well, the article talks about pumping the CO2 underground, where it would be held. That's even crazier, since plants require CO2 for photosynthesis. Take it out of circulation artificially, and you are playing with the whole Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide interchange between the earth's plants and animals. That's insane.