Montana looks to expand coal production

A recent Telegraph (UK) article looks at Governor Schweitzer’s (Montana) call for increased coal production throughout the state and offers an admission – through clenched and gritting teeth – that coal just might provide the United States with a viable option to a continued reliance on foreign sources of oil.

The Governor of Montana is calling for vast tracks of land to be strip-mined for coal as the only way of reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil.

As high petrol prices, the shutdown of BP’s Prudhoe Bay oilfield, and conflict in the Middle East dominate the headlines, Brian Schweitzer is the latest politician to risk the wrath of the environmental lobby by pressing for greater use of coal.

The black rock currently accounts for more than half of America’s electricity production and the industry has been quietly making a resurgence. With oil prices stubbornly above $70 a barrel, coal is again an economically viable resource.

The glaring error in the last sentence is just one example of the clear anti-coal bias permeating the article – coal always has been, and continues to be, “an economically viable resource.

Despite the author’s obvious discomfort with the subject matter, he is still forced to admit coal’s value and abundance. He does, however, manage to wrap that admission in a litany of perjorative phrases. The author grudgingly admits that, in the face of ever increasing oil prices, new technologies could allow the US to replace oil imports with domestically produced coal.

Readers should take note of some of the verbal assaults on coal, as they demonstrate the steep learing curve that coal producers, users, and supporters face in educating society on the benefits of coal.

Here are a few examples for your edification:

• …calling for vast tracks of land to be strip-mined …
• …risk the wrath of the environmental lobby by pressing for greater use of coal…
• …coal is again an economically viable resource…
• …doubters see strip-mining, where acres of land are transformed into moonscapes to reach the coal beneath, as detrimental to the environment…
• …America’s vast reserve of coal is like a giant anchor slowing down the nation’s transition to new sources of energy,” said Jeff Goodell in his book Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future…

Despite the above comments, the author is forced to admit the U.S. has 25 percent of the world’s coal reserves, that our coal resources can fuel this country for another 200 years, and that the FutureGen push and other new technologies are making “coal easier and cleaner to process.”

As this article shows, coal users face numerous, entrenched, and inaccurate anti-coal biases that we must work to dismantle. However, the political unrest and overall instability in the regions that supply much of our oil and natural gas provides us with the perfect opportunity to emphasize the abundant, secure, and rapidly improving environmental record of coal.