UK coal conference showed the challenge ahead
There was a remarkable public forum at the University of Kentucky on Thursday. The moderator began by saying it reminded him of the old song Which Side Are You On?
Florence Reece, a miner’s wife, wrote that song about the economic controversies surrounding coal in Harlan County in the 1930s. Thursday’s forum, sponsored by UK’s College of Engineering, focused on the global controversies surrounding coal today.
What made the forum remarkable was that it might have been the first time that so many coal executives, environmentalists and community activists sat together in the same room and discussed those controversies openly and, for the most part, honestly.
Some speakers on both sides fell into the old traps — misrepresentations, oversimplifications and emotional appeals. But most stuck to facts. Things are different when you’re addressing your biggest critics, rather than preaching to your choir.
Historian Ron Bryant noted that coal’s effects on human health and the environment have been controversial since mining began in Kentucky in the 1820s. “But the need for coal stopped all arguments,” he said.
Coal powered the industrial revolution, and it fuels our modern lifestyle. But the global debate over climate change is making people realize that the future will be much different than the past.
Most of the world’s scientists and policy makers agree that climate change is real and that burning coal poses a threat to civilization. Meanwhile, there’s increased public opposition to surface and mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia and the environmental damage it causes.
“We can no longer in this state maintain the status quo,” said Joe Blackburn, a regulator for more than three decades who heads the Lexington field office of the U.S. Office of Surface Mining.
“Dealing with change is never easy,” he said. “But change is a normal part of life.”
Some coal executives seemed surprised when economists outlined their industry’s declining influence in Kentucky.
Coal employment has fallen sharply since its peak in 1980 as mining has become more mechanized. Coal accounts for only 1 percent of statewide employment — and only 3.5 percent when spin-off jobs are included.
Mining creates some good-paying jobs, but it also crowds out other economic opportunities in coal-producing counties, some of which are among the nation’s poorest.
Coal production accounts for only 1.45 percent of gross state product — and it’s falling. Kentucky coal production peaked in 1988, and the market has shifted to cheaper coal from Western states.
Coal has kept Kentucky’s electricity rates among the cheapest in the nation. But those rates are rising and will continue to rise in a carbon-conscious world that will require coal to bear more of its true cost.
And here’s the rub: Coal now provides about half the nation’s electricity — and 92 percent in Kentucky. Renewable energy sources aren’t commercially advanced enough to replace coal, and they won’t be for years, if not decades.
Renewable energy and perhaps nuclear power must be developed soon, because we’re running out of coal. Kentucky might have only 20 years of coal left — or maybe 100 years, with improved mining technology and the right market conditions. But everyone agrees that coal is a finite resource whose end is in sight.
The forum wasn’t all doom and gloom; there was encouraging news. UK researchers talked about what they’re doing to develop renewable energy and lessen the environmental damage of mining and burning coal, and to reforest and reclaim mined land.
The unmistakable takeaway from this daylong “fair and balanced” discussion of coal’s future was that the solutions aren’t simple and the trade-offs won’t be painless, either for the coal industry or for the energy-consuming public.
But Kentucky is at a crossroads.
The coal industry can continue to deny climate change, fight regulation and use scare tactics to delay the inevitable. Or it can work with scientists and its critics to find more responsible ways to mine and use the coal we have left.
Kentucky’s political and business leaders can try to preserve the status quo, as they did for years with tobacco. Or they can focus on energy conservation. They can support research. And they can develop the energy technologies and industries that must eventually replace coal.
If last week’s public forum showed one thing, it’s that there’s only one logical path, no matter which side you’re on.
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November 17th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Having been at the forum, the one thing that neither Joe Craft, the President and CEO of Alliance Coal, or Fred Palmer, Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Peabody Energy mentioned was conservation. Quite the contrary, they were pushing for using more and more coal. Palmer, a huge proponent of CCS (carbon capture and sequestration), an unproven and still iffy technology. Because very few coal burning power plants are actually situated where the geology could possibly allow CCS, there would have to be large pipelines built. He see’s this as “job creation”. Palmer is also a big believer in the Peak Oil theory (oil production and reserves have peaked) and while it is true that CO2 can be and is pumped into faltering oil wells to get the last drops of oil out, he actually suggested that jobs and wealth could be created by INCREASING the production of CO2 from coal plant scrubbers to sell to pump into failing oil wells. Craft apparently is in denial about the ongoing dangers of coal, coal slurry, and global warming, simply seemed lost in the 60’s and 70’s…..