There's lots of news from the dark world of coal these days. Mostly, it reflects a failure in the industry (and in some parts of government) to see the handwriting on the wall.
Take, for example, the continuing examples of mining companies resisting changes to their old ways of doing business. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander and some others are sponsoring an effort to ban mountaintop-removal mining, in which entire ranges may be decapitated, turned into mesas, while the rock and detritus remaining from the coal fills valleys and pollutes streams. In turn, coal miners in other nearby mining states are trying to organize a boycott of Tennessee by not traveling there or spending money there. Clearly, mining companies also oppose vehemently any restriction on their methods.
It's a fact that in the U.S., thanks to our huge reserves, coal is still a relatively cheap source of energy. But a part of that cost benefit derives from the fact that miners have been allowed to pursue their mining without paying many of the real costs of their activity: destruction of landscape, pollution. Easy but destructive methods like mountaintop removal are one reason that coal may appear inexpensive. Lack of regulation, or sloppiness in enforcing it, as in the recent massive coal ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority, also lowers the companies' operating costs. The costs of cleaning up that spill are now estimated at $1.2 billion; the cost of preventing it would almost certainly have been far less.
Does coal have a future? Undoubtedly. Supplies are huge; many existing power plants depend on coal and can't be converted overnight to alternative fuels. But coal's relative cheapness will inevitably disappear or decrease as we take steps to preserve our country's topography.
But does coal have a l-o-n-g future? I seriously doubt it. No fossil fuel does, or should. We now know what burning coal, petroleum, or even natural gas, is doing to the earth's atmosphere. That's why "clean coal" doesn't make a lot of sense to me; emissions can be reduced, but they can't be zeroed. We will need to scuttle coal. It may take a couple of generations. But rather than foot-dragging resistance to change, anyone in the coal mining business should take a look at the handwriting on the wall, and be using the profits they make now to shift into other, cleaner energy technology.
An enlightened compromise might be to permit companies, on a case-by-case basis, to continue some bad practices for a limited time if they simultaneously undertake to create something preferable (not just clean coal).
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