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Coal the right fuel with the right rules
Froma Harrop
Froma Harrop is a nationally syndicated columnist.

   It’s awfully hard to make coal pretty. When you dig deep for it, you risk the lives of miners, as seen in the tragedy at Utah’s Crandall Canyon Mine. If you mine it by lopping off the tops of mountains — as is done in Appalachia — you rape the environment.
   When you burn coal for electricity, you fi ll the air with acid-rain chemicals and asthmainducing fine particles — that is, unless you install scrubbing devices in the plants. And even if you have scrubbers, the process releases enormous quantities of planet-warming gases. Scientists are working on the technology to capture and bury these gases, but it will be very expensive.
   Too bad, because the United States has coal in abundance. There is enough coal in Illinois alone to power the entire nation for the next 200 years, so we are told.
   Clearly, many of the problems associated with coal could be lessened with responsible government regulation. But then you have the current administration.
   President Bush and Vice President Cheney have long “delivered” to the coal industry, which has returned the favor with fat checks. But before we get overly partisan here, let us note that many coal-state Democrats are also avid coddlers of Big Coal.
   The administration just issued regulations easing the way for the most appalling means of coal extraction — mountaintop removal. Drive through the coal country of West Virginia and Kentucky: Where once stood majestic mountains and hardwood forests, you see rocky stumps on which only grass and brush can grow. The rubble was dumped into the valleys, destroying hundreds of streams.
   A federal law from the 1980s forbids mining within 100 feet of a permanent stream, but it has been ignored. The new rules would let the companies continue to pillage the environment, but with less red tape.
   “Rather than enforce the law, the administration is changing the law to legitimize an illegal practice,” explains Joe Lovett, head of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, in Lewisburg, W.V.
   Again, this is not an all-Republican show. The political establishment in West Virginia is traditionally Democratic and eager to sell the state’s future to coal interests. Sen. Robert Byrd has been at it for 60 years.
   Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin recently changed the welcome-to-West-Virginia signs along highways. They now read, “Open for Business,” rather than the older, “Wild and Wonderful.”
   “The new signs are hated,” Lovett says, “and not only by the lefties.”
   The idea that this kind of coal mining could be good for an economy is absolutely, 120 percent nuts. West Virginia should be waving its gorgeous scenery in front of knowledge workers in nearby Washington, D.C., Charlotte, N.C., and Richmond, Va. Instead, the state is scaring them off with a mass lunacy that tolerates shearing off mountains and burying streams for a quick buck. Coal mining doesn’t even create many jobs anymore.
   Elsewhere, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, has been demanding huge taxpayer subsidies for coal-to-liquids projects that could produce a gasoline substitute. Unfortunately, these fuels produce almost twice as much greenhouse gases as ordinary petroleum.
   The big irony here is that if government showed a strong interest in regulating coal — both the extraction and the burning of it — one might say, “Go for it.” But the leadership is simply not there. The Bush administration even opposed giving the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
   And so without tougher rules and a technological breakthrough, coal cannot be the answer to our energy prayers. Coal may be cheap, but its environmental price is simply too high.

  
  
  

Why not find a way to build safe nuclear power plants that don't pollute the environment. The government has been using nuclear fuel to power it's big ships for decades without serious problems but the power plants are quality ones not going to the lowest bidder and concentrating on quality and safety.

Well, how I look at this entire thing is that if you decide to ignore false science (such as global warming, which is Froma's main reason for not wanting to mine coal for ANYTHING), coal actually is a wonderful alternative.  Now, I realize that ripping a mountain down isn't going to make things more pretty, but hey, maybe instead they should take all that land in Kentucky and West Virginia and flatten it to put up some skyscrapers.  That would be OK, wouldn't it?

I really think that coal, not oil, not corn, coal is going to be the answer to the fuel "crisis" that has bothered this country since my birth (for anyone who doesn't know, I was born in 1975, hence the 75 on my name  )

BK, when I was in my teens my parents were still burning coal as a means of heat in the winter. Burning coal has by-products such as heavy ash and unburned coal along with a lot of carbon emissions when it's burned. We also have vast deposits of shale oil in this country but so far it's been too expensive to extract the oil from the shale. We should also be working on a cheaper means of extracting the oil from the shale as we could use what we have in this country for a long long time. There is also technology being used to convert coal into an oil like liquid that will burn just like oil but again the expense is prohibitive. We can also use hydrogen to fuel cars and to  power electric generating plants if the technology can be improved. Old tires can be shredded into chips and burned just like coal and it would solve our used tire problem. Where are our inventors who will create a means to do some of the things?

When I was growing up I remember my parents heating with oil. There was never a problem of any kind except for my parents. I remember them having to get up in the middle of the night, on those real cold nights to put more coal in the furnace.

They later converted to oil. It was much easier on my parents, since all they had to do was turn the dial on a thermostat. But, I remember that after the oil conversion, the walls use to get dirty quicker. There always seemed to be like a black oily soot on the walls. Not a lot...but slightly noticeable.

There are people I know who have oil heat and they say the same thing today.

What is wrong with natural gas.....and couldn't we use the 'gas' from our septic systems......gas/coal/oil are all from decomposing carbon based lifeforms....by the size of the earth....someone is controling(regulating is the word usually used) it.........

Not to mention not realizing the difference between needs/wants.....