The following Letter to the Editor was written by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity President and CEO Robert M. “Mike” Duncan, and published in the Washington Post in response to a recent Op-Ed the paper had written regarding the coal-based electricity industry.
An America without coal plants?
Columnist Eugene Robinson would have President Obama use executive power to shutter our nation’s coal plants, with little regard to the impact on the economy — or on the environment [“Let the coal fire die out,” op-ed, Feb. 26].
More than $100 billion has been invested to make electricity from coal almost 90 percent cleaner than it was 40 years ago. We have more than a dozen clean-coal technologies to thank for this progress. Turning our backs on coal and clean-coal technologies would give countries such as India and China a huge advantage over the United States, which has the largest coal reserves in the world.
Global energy demand is going to increase by 50 percent over the next 25 years, and that demand cannot be met without coal. Those who value a clean environment and a strong economy should be looking for ways to use coal even more cleanly instead of abandoning clean coal to other countries.
Robert M. Duncan
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is committed to the idea that America can have the affordable, reliable electricity we need, with the clean environment we want. ACCCE’s Behind the Plug blog is the place for up-to-date news and analysis on clean coal technology developments and energy policy progress.
I grew up in the Appalachian coal fields of southern Ohio. As a kid I worked in the mines as did my father and his father. Thus I have a deep respect for the economic impact of coal as well as the people who earned their living in the mines. The place I grew up, Athens County, produced over 200 million tons of coal between 1820 and 1993 which is the last year I have history for. Ohio produced over 3.4 billion tons from 1800 to 1993. That equated to a lot of jobs and a huge impact on the economy. Today coal is more efficiently burned than ever. It still creates tens of thousands of jobs and it still makes a major contribution to our economy. William E. Simon in his book A Time for Truth in 1976 estimated that the country had enough coal to last 800 years. This was based on the rate of consumption and known reserves at that time. Since then the known reserves have increased as methods of extraction have become more efficient. One wonders what how many hundreds of years supply we have at today’s rate of consumption based on our expanded reserves?! And so the question is why would we not want to exploit this God given resource? Coal produces energy. It creates jobs. It is cleaner than ever. It is in the ground for the taking. It helps fuel our economy. The answer of course is that the people and groups who are anti-coal do not care. They would also be against any fossil based fuel as well as nuclear and other forms of energy. The issue is not really, in the long run, about clean energy or the environment. It is about control and power. Nobody wants a dirty environment, dirty water or disfigured landscapes. Today the strip mines I sweated in are populated by beaver and deer feeding and drinking water from the thousands upon thousands of small ponds where we mined. The mines are now state and national forests, parks and recreational areas. These would never have existed without the mines. And so I submit that there are people who will always be against coal just as there are people who throw paint on women wearing fur coats. These are the same people who will never admit that a gun is no more evil than a kitchen knife no matter how much evidence is presented to the contrary. These people will never go away because they need a cause and they need the power and they crave the control. The only way to beat them is to take the war to the trenches. Battles can be won in the courts but the war will be won in the towns, villages and communities that depend on coal for a living. The public needs to be aware, in dollars and cents, of what their lives would be like without coal. What would their utility bill look like without coal? Even if their electricity comes from other sources, such as hydroelectric, those sources would have to be reallocated without coal. What would that mean to a person living in Niagara Falls, NY? I passionately believe that it is time for the people who are dependent on this incredible national resource to take the lead, go on the offense and no longer play defense in this national debate!