Burning Coal, Burning Cash, Burning the Future

by Jim Reynolds

I finally got around to reading the Summer 2010 issue of The Catalyst, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, of which I am a member. An article titled Burning Coal, Burning Cash was fascinating. I liked it so much, I stole the title for use in this piece. The article presents data that show that North Carolina exported $2.3 billion in 2008 to purchase coal for its coal-fired power plants, more than any other state, except Georgia, which spent $2.6 billion. Eight other states spent more that $1 billion to import coal from other states and abroad, several of which are already coal mining states.

The frightening thing is that $2.3 billion doesn’t begin to cover the actual cost of coal-fired power in North Carolina. Our federal tax dollars support attempts to clean up the messes left behind. I’m talking about messes like air pollution. To paraphrase the article, the National Academy of Sciences discovered that, in 2005, air pollutants from coal-fired power plants in the United States caused more than $62 billion in damage. Most of this damage is attributed to the premature deaths of American citizens, mainly through lung and heart disease. The Southeast has the highest rate of air pollution-related deaths in the nation.

I’m talking about messes like the dispersal of soot and heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and lead out of the smokestacks and across our landscape and into our ecosystem, our bodies and the food we eat.

I’m talking about messes like mountaintop removal strip mining which has leveled more than 2,200 square miles of Appalachian Mountains. They are impossible to put back; they are gone forever.

I’m talking about messes like the burial of more than 2,000 miles of Appalachian Mountain streams—the coal companies had to put those mountaintops somewhere so they filled in the valleys.

I’m talking about the pollution of tens of thousands of miles of Appalachian Mountain streams, most of it from acid mine drainage but also from heavy metals leached from the valley fills.

I’m talking about the displacement of Appalachian Mountain families and communities caused by flooding, landslides, toxic water, bad air, and mine subsidence that result from deforested, strip-mined mountains and underground mines.

I’m talking about messes like the toxic residue, in the form of coal ash, left behind after coal is burned. This material accounts for about 10% of the volume of coal and is stored in impoundments that will someday break as did the one in Harriman, TN, in 2008. The Environmental Protection Agency identifies 12 high-risk impoundments in North Carolina alone.

I’m talking about messes like mine fires, explosions, and collapses, as well as other accidents, that kill miners every year.

I am talking about messes like the rising level of acidification of our oceans caused by the acid rain downwind of our coal-fired power plants. Acid dissolves the shells of plankton floating at the acidified surface. We are killing of the base of the marine food chain.

Finally, I’m talking about the havoc starting to be seen by the insane level of greenhouse gases being pumped into our atmosphere, primarily carbon dioxide. Coal-fired power plants are the leading contributor of carbon dioxide. For every ton of coal burned, more that 3½ tons of carbon dioxide are emitted into the atmosphere. The world burned nearly 7 billion tons of coal in 2007 and more than that each year since. This is a major contributor to the global warming that is driving the climate change we are only now starting to witness.

I hope you get my point. Who pays for the clean-up? It’s certainly not the mining companies or the power companies. If they did, your electric bills would skyrocket out of sight. They would no longer be able to tout that coal is the cheapest source of electricity. But you pay for it anyway. Instead of seeing it in your electric bill, it’s disguised as your tax dollars at work. These tax dollars subsidize coal mining. These tax dollars fund a slew of federal agencies to oversee, regulate, and fine the abuses of an industry that lives high on the hog using our money and our natural resources. These tax dollars fund the clean-up of the multiple messes that coal mining and coal burning leave behind.

You might wonder, “Are they insane? Why do they do this?” You should wonder, “Are we insane? Why do we let them do this?”

I have to ask a pair of hypothetical questions. “How much would we change our energy future if we invested one year’s $2.3 billion in North Carolina instead of sending it out of state? What would happen if we began developing North Carolina’s renewable energy resources and investing in energy efficiency?”

A quick walk around the Brevard College campus reveals dorms that are too hot in winter and too cold in summer. Most of our windows are single pane and not well caulked allowing heat to escape. Brevard College isn’t alone. These problems, or other similar efficiency problems, are standard in most buildings in the Southeast. With efficient thermostat controls and modern windows, we would save a bundle every year.

North Carolina is already a member of the Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that the offshore wind of the Atlantic outer continental shelf alone has the potential to generate four times the total electricity needs of the entire United States. I regard this as a minimum number. They assumed only 5 Megawatts of power output for every square kilometer (Mw/km²). A visit to any existing wind farm—onshore or offshore—reveals that their production is much higher than 5 Mw/km². Which state in the consortium has the largest continental shelf on the Eastern Seaboard (caveat: Florida is not a member of the consortium.)? You guessed it: North Carolina. In reality, wind power is only a fraction of the potential. The inexorable push of the Gulf Stream has the potential to generate much more than the wind and each passing wave could be tapped for a portion of its energy up and down the coast. With a little forethought and planning, North Carolina could become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy within several decades—and I haven’t even mentioned solar power.

If North Carolina invested $2.3 billion in North Carolina by developing the abundant clean, natural energy flowing through the air and water just over the horizon from our coastline, we could put thousands of North Carolinians to work and create a sustainable energy boom that will carry us for decades, if not centuries, into the future. The power companies would continue to make a profit and we would continue to benefit from abundant, relatively inexpensive electricity.

It is essential that our politicians, our populace, and our power companies change their mindset. The old ways are becoming the source of our ruin. There are too many of us to allow continued poisoning of our world. We need to create a new, clean, abundant, sustainable energy future. The consequences of not doing so will be detrimental to all of us.