Holding on to the past denies coal's future - Editorials and Columns - Press Room - United States Senator Jay Rockefeller
For the past more than several years, we have been doing our best to document for you how we can expand the use of our abundant Coal, and the byproducts of our Coal use, to the benefit of our entire society.
We can increase employment in Coal Country; we can free our entire nation from economic enslavement to OPEC; and, we can improve the world's natural environment - all through an expanded, but educated and properly directed, reliance on Coal and on the byproducts of our Coal use.
But, that expanded reliance on Coal doesn't mean clinging single-mindedly to the narrow concept of burning more of it just to generate electricity, even though that might be our foundation, what we all know and have grown, perhaps too, comfortable with.
Coal, with all it's potentials, is far larger than that. We Coal People should be, too.
That is our interpretation of what was written not long ago by someone, who, despite much recent criticism and what we take as some misinterpretation of his words, we here are now convinced, holds the best interests of West Virginia, of all of Coal Country, of the entire United States of America, in his heart; someone who has come to understand the vast, truly vast, raw material potentials of Coal.
First, we have to remind you of a few things. And, it is a shame that we have to do it in this context.
It should have been done for you, done for all of us, long ago in the Coal Country public press.
Again, for more than several years, we have been documenting for you, via the progressive and dedicated West Virginia Coal Association, that, as seen for just several select examples in:
Standard Oil 1952 Coal to Gasoline Emits No CO2 | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 2,620,348 - Hydrocarbon Synthesis with Two-Stage Coke Gasification; 1952; Assignee: Standard Oil Development Company; Abstract: The present invention ... is concerned with ... an improved two-stage process for preparing synthesis gas from coke or coal, and a two-stage process for reacting synthesis gas thus produced to give high yields of valuable high octane gasoline"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Bayer Is Converting Coal Power Plant CO2 Into Plastics | Research & Development; concerning: "Bayer Material Science CO2-to-Plastics Pilot Plant, Germany; In February 2011, Bayer MaterialScience started a new pilot plant (in the) North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany for producing plastics from carbon dioxide (CO2). It will be used to develop polyurethanes from the waste gas released during power generation"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Fly Ash Facts for Engineers | Research & Development; concerning: "Fly Ash Facts for Highway Engineers; Report Number: FHWA-IF-03-019; 2003; Coal fly ash is a coal combustion product that has numerous applications in highway construction";
we can, in addition to a number of other things, efficiently convert Coal into "high octane gasoline"; make "plastics from carbon dioxide (CO2)"; and, utilize "Coal fly ash" in "numerous" ways in the building of roads.
The fact that we are not yet in our Coal Country public media openly talking about those potentials, much less undertaking to accomplish any of them, as we here take it, is the point of, as excerpted from the initial link in this dispatch, the admonition expressed to us by someone whose many decades of service to the West Virginia heart of US Coal Country should motivate us to at least seriously consider, without knee-jerk cries of what we now perceive to be thoughtless, even lazy and short-sighted, alarm, that:
"Holding On To The Past Denies Coal's Future
June 20, 2012
United States Senator Jay Rockefeller
Here in West Virginia, we take pride in our way of life - in our families, our communities, our jobs.
That pride is well-placed. Because when each of these things is intact, there's simply no way of living that rivals West Virginia's.
Every West Virginian wants a healthy family. A strong community. A good job that gives real security and the chance to do some of what we love most in our state - weekend fishing trips, kids’ soccer games, family vacations.
To me, this is a way of life worth fighting for. And it’s something that’s certainly worth coming together - with allies from all sides - to preserve.
That’s why, when faced this week with a vote in the Senate - on a Resolution of Disapproval of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules on coal-fired power plants reducing mercury and air pollution - I made a decision to stand behind what we value most in West Virginia.
Some in the coal industry won’t see my vote that way. But what they fail to acknowledge is that this resolution does absolutely nothing to embrace the challenge and potential of coal’s future.
This is the type of narrow thinking that moves us backward - declaring that we should somehow turn back the clock, ignore the present and block the future. Instead, we must be moving swiftly forward.
The rule this vote called into question is estimated to yield enormous annual health benefits - as these pollutants are shown to have serious and long-term effects through premature deaths, heart attacks and hospitalizations, and impacts on pregnant women, babies and children.
I’ve always stood behind West Virginians’ health, and I do so still today. Because without good health, holding down a job can be impossible. Providing for one’s family can be insurmountable. And the happiness that comes with each of these things is lost.
This EPA rule - two decades in the making - also moves utility companies ahead on employing technologies that will help guarantee coal jobs well into the future. Some utilities, including some in West Virginia, already have invested in technology and are ready to comply with the rule.
But across our state, there also are smaller, older and less efficient coal-fired plants slated for closure, not because of EPA regulations alone, but - as corporate boards decided long ago and companies themselves will tell you - because they are no longer economical as compared to low-emission, cheaper natural gas plants.
I remain deeply concerned about job losses. And I believe we need not only an immediate plan for job transition opportunities, but also a renewed and collective focus on the future – on the jobs that will come with new manufacturing and next generation technology.
In West Virginia, we need allies - not adversaries. But coal operators have yet to step up as strong allies and partners ready to lead, innovate and fight for the future.
Instead of moving the conversation on coal forward, some in the industry have demanded all-or-nothing, time and again, for the ill-sighted purpose of a sound bite or flashy billboard. These efforts make no progress, they don’t pursue attainable policy change, and they certainly don’t create or save jobs.
Change is upon us - from finite coal reserves and aging power plants, to the rise of natural gas and the very real shift to a lower-carbon economy.
Denying these factors and insisting that the EPA alone is going to make or break coal is dishonest and futile. Feeding fears with insular views and divergent motivations will leave our communities in the dust.
West Virginians deserve better.
It was a mining community that first brought me to West Virginia - and why I made our state my lifelong home. I’ve been proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with miners time and again - for their jobs, their health care and benefits, and their safety.
I stand with them still. Because unless this industry aggressively leans into the future, West Virginia’s people and communities - our treasured way of life - stand to lose the most.
I am frustrated, but I’m not giving up. I believe in the technologies that will move West Virginia forward. And I will keep pushing for smart investments that focus squarely on a long-term future for coal and jobs, while also addressing very real environmental and health concerns.
It’s not too late to discard unproductive all-or-nothing approaches, look ahead to a sustainable future, and join together as the bold partners West Virginia urgently needs."
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The above emphases were added.
First, we will disagree with the esteemed Senator Rockefeller in one respect.
Concerning his statement:
"there also are smaller, older and less efficient coal-fired plants slated for closure, not because of EPA regulations alone, but - as corporate boards decided long ago and companies themselves will tell you - because they are no longer economical as compared to low-emission, cheaper natural gas plants";
we do agree that some "older and less efficient coal-fired plants" have been "slated for closure" based on their stand-alone economics.
However, as we have separately reported and documented for selected members of the Coal Country press and other Coal Country professionals, "natural gas plants", are not, when based on the consumption of what is commonly known as "Shale Gas", necessarily, when the entire cycle of production and use is accounted for, "low emission" relative to Coal.
In terms of total, life cycle emissions, they can, in fact, be worse; maybe much worse. Again, we have separately documented some of that; and, will document more of it in the near future.
Further, as even once-avid public fans of Shale Gas now confess, as seen for one instance in:
Obama’s cheer: Lose, team, lost - NewsandSentinel.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - Parkersburg News and Senti; March 5, 2012; Mike Myer ,The Intelligencer; "Environmental Protection Agency's rules, being implemented though Congress already has rejected some of them, have convinced utilities they'll have to close about 30 coal-fired power plants, including some right here in the Ohio Valley. Sure, the companies can change to natural gas - but that will send electric bills soaring. Mike Myer is executive editor of The Intelligencer and the Wheeling News-Register";
and, as has already happened in Europe for anyone who wants to trouble themselves to look into it, switching wholesale from Coal to Shale Gas, or Natural Gas in general, for power generation - - due especially to the relatively low Btu content of Gas, and, the, as documented by the US Geologic Survey and the USDOE's Energy Information Agency, far lower reserves of Shale Gas than those touted by the Shale Gas promoters - - "will" much more sooner than later, "send electric bills soaring".
However, on the other hand, building out a system of generation facilities based on environmental energy, facilities which we could and should come to see as allies rather than as competitors, like that seen in:
Mountaineer Wind Energy Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "Mountaineer Wind Energy Center is a wind farm on Backbone Mountain in Preston and Tucker counties in the US state of West Virginia";
would do a few very important things for us.
First, it would, while still providing jobs, help us to conserve some of our "finite", though still vast, "coal reserves", and allow us to turn some of those Coal reserves to higher-value, national security-enhancing uses, such as described by:
Mobil Oil Coal to Methanol to Gasoline | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,447,310 - Production of Distillates through Methanol to Gasoline; 1984; Assignee: Mobil Oil Corporation;
Abstract: A process for producing a wide slate of fuel products from coal is provided by integrating a methanol-to-gasoline conversion process with coal liquefaction and coal gasification";
wherein Coal can be converted into both OPEC-shafting domestic Gasoline and the nearly-precious industrial raw material, Methanol.
Second, it would provide us with a Carbon-free source of energy with which to effect processes like that disclosed in:
West Virginia Coal Association | US Navy and Columbia University Recycle Atmospheric CO2 | Research & Development; in part concerning: "United States Patent 7,420,004 - Process and System for Producing Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels; 2008; Assignee: The USA as Represented by the Secretary of the Navy; Abstract: A process for producing synthetic hydrocarbons that reacts carbon dioxide, obtained from seawater or air, and hydrogen obtained from water, with a catalyst in a chemical process such as reverse water gas shift combined with Fischer Tropsch synthesis. The hydrogen is produced by nuclear reactor electricity, nuclear waste heat conversion, ocean thermal energy conversion, or any other source that is fossil fuel-free, such as wind or wave energy"; as, for instance seen in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Hydrogen for Coal and CO2 Conversion from Wind Power | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,199,482 - System and Method for Controlling Wind Farm Power Output; 2007; Assignee: General Electric Company, NY; Abstract: A method for controlling variability in power output of a wind farm supplying power to a grid includes monitoring (and adjusting) a power output level of the wind farm (by supplying any excess electricity that can't be profitably contributed to the grid to) an electrolyzer system ... to produce hydrogen";
and, thereby obviate the CO2 confetti everyone's been conditioned to reflexively hurl at Coal, while at the same time poking another finger with Coal dust grimed under it's nail into OPEC's eye.
And, all of that while contributing to Senator Rockefeller's more gently-stated goal of "a sustainable future"; that is, what could be, what should be, not just "Coal's", but Coal Country's, and all her people's, "Future"; all attained through an expanded, though in many ways different from what we're comfortably used to, reliance, through "next generation technology ", on our bedrock:
Coal.
