Coal is plentiful, ensuring that we Americans will have enough coal for the next 300 years at the current consumption rate. Contrast that with oil—which is considered to be in its twilight years with a global decline in production expected to begin within the next 20 years—and coal looks pretty good.
Coal is definitely good for business. It keeps production costs low for manufacturers that use the fuel to make paper, chemicals, steel and even products like medicine and plastic that can be made from coal gas. Cheaper production in turn keeps consumer costs down, driving increased production and bigger profits.
If you live in Kentucky, coal is part of your history, your present and your future.
In the Commonwealth alone, coal employs more than 17,000 miners, produces about 97 percent of the state’s electricity and makes a combined direct and indirect contribution of more than $12 billion to the state economy.
So why is this historic, abundant, productive and affordable fuel source under attack?
Because the federal government has allowed it to be under attack. And the attacks are getting worse under such destructive federal proposals as “Cap and Trade”—those three little words that convinced Ford Motor Co. to build its newest “World Car” assembly plant in Mexico where government officials assured Ford it would not have to conform to any carbon regulations.
Just recently, a Cap and Trade proposal was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives that would cripple coal by limiting or “capping” the amount of pollutants an industry can emit. Companies would be issued emission permits and be allowed to emit a specific amount of the pollutant, like carbon dioxide which is emitted by burning coal. The feds wasted no time labeling this common gas a pollutant when the new administration took over in January.
Once Cap and Trade takes effect, companies that want to exceed their cap must buy credits from companies that pollute less, increasing the cost of electricity for practically every Kentuckian and millions of other Americans.
But there is a problem with the Cap and Trade proposal. First of all, it would cripple the coal industry. Second, it would extend the recession. And last but not least, scientists themselves say there is no energy source—in Kentucky or nationally—that can replace fossil fuel, especially coal, as the nation’s leading source of electricity production anytime in the near future.
Director Rodney Andrews of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research told state lawmakers as recently as last month that he expects coal and other fossil fuels to produce at least 40 to 50 percent of the nation’s electricity for the foreseeable future. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar, he explained, are not expected to be able to be produced at utility scale for quite some time.
Until scientists find out the best way to use renewable at utility scale, Andrews made is clear that regulations should not be passed declaring that “we know how to do that.” He was speaking specifically about a rule proposed by the EPA last summer that would allow the agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of coal-fired power plants and industrial plants nationwide.
Most of us know this rule as the first step toward the passage of Cap and Trade and related climate legislation in Congress.
If some folks favor popular scientific thought about climate change, perhaps they will also consider rational scientific thought by brilliant scientists like Andrews who are telling us in no uncertain terms that only coal and fossil fuels are capable of providing our state and our nation with the power we need to survive on a mass scale.
Next week, I will discuss what could happen under the Cap and Trade policies being proposed in Washington. Until then, have a good week.
Now comes some outsider who damns all efforts by the industry to produce a product that benefits the worker and his family, the proprietor, the area, the state, the US and the world. Southern WV has no other industry that will provide like coal does.
This outsider has suggested that the coal fields contribute to ignorance and coal is the reason the resident students fare so poorly in school. Although some area students perform poorly, there are others that do extremly well academically and have become Drs, lawyers (no indian chiefs). Student from the area occupy all professional ranks. So, I would suggest coal has nothing to do with academic performance.
It has been suggested that coal should shut down and the Southern WVians develope tourism as a means of supporting families. The H/M Trail System has been a boon for the area, but there are few opportunities and the average pay rate is laughable in comparison to coal pay.
Some have taken lightly researched health studies from telephone interviews and extrapolated that coal is THE thing that is detrimental to the health in the region. No consideration is given to diet and exercise and carefree lifestyle. Most of us have lived on beans and potatoes and cornbread for lunch and evening meal. For breakfast, we like eggs, gravy and biscuits with a choice of meat. Seems we do well with this diet when we are young and constantly on the go, but as we get older, we cannot burn this intake of calories and we tend to get a little hefty. No body's business but our own with our lifestyle.
The outsider has stated that Truman Chafin is a Republican. Truman is the typical Mingo County politician and it would certainly strain honesty to put him in that camp. Truman has asked the administration to back off coal, but I think to no avail. The President, VP and leaders in house and senate are anti coal. They think they can build a "green energy" economy and stop using coal, oil and gas. They are going to hurt the entire country before someone realizes that the way out of the economic mess, is to develope our natural resources to provide instant jobs and give the country something to sell outside for US income instead of continuing to ship our dollars to OPEC countries. The US can produce all the energy we need plus some to sell to foreign countries. If the current administration will allow, we can fix our economic and employment problems without the country borrowing more from China.
Southern WV is a hard working and proud lot. Leave us alone, and we will pull those out of the fire who have looked down upon for so long.
Kentucky Rep. Collins is flat out LYING. He's another bought-and-paid-for politician who'll obviously write or say anything to preserve his own job.
Coal isn't "under attack", it is ATTACKING. Otherwise the coal industry wouldn't have spent upwards of $47 million to lobby Congress and spread the lie that "Coal is Clean" instead of figuring out ways to make it clean.
The plain truth is that Cap and Trade laws won't apply to non-polluting energy sources. So if Coal is so CLEAN, then how would it hurt the industry, as Collins claims?
He also claims that coal is cheap, but the truth is that coal costs communities that mine it far more in sickness and death. And he should realize it, since the state of Kentucky sponsored a study which revealed it. But don't take my word for it.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/260/story/70747.html
I suspect that the reason his lies appear in a Mingo County WV newspaper is because the coal industry is a major contributer to his campaign, and Mingo County folks are easier to fool because the Williamson Newspaper never reported Kentucky's findings on the hidden costs of coal.
One final note: There are funds built into the Stimulus Package and Cap and Trade which will help coalpatch communities rise above the oppressive coal industry. If coal would clean up its own act instead of buying off politicians, more people would not only be working in remediation, but more folks would survive the deadly pollution.