Take a Deep Breath Virginia (.pdf)

www.dailykos.com

Thank you for your kind words, and I hope everyone will be in touch with their friends and neighbors about what is going on in the mountains of Virginia.

When I was in college I read Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry Caudill, which I remember as a great, wrenching book.  http://en.wikipedia....
Though it is not about the Scranton area, the same story was repeated in both places.

The miners led wretched lives.  Many developed lung disease.  There was a great wealth disparity between the owners and the workers.

Thank you for a great diary. 

1990 was Virginia peak year with some 46.5 million tons but by 2004 it had dropped to 31 million tons and during since 1990's Virginias highest unemployment rates historically have been in coalmining centers.

1980 Virginia had 800 operating mines but by 2001 it had dropped to 328. The State saw a loss of some 10k jobs during this period associated with this period.

The reasons may vary but the biggest one pointed to was the Clean Air Act legislation of the 1980's which went after the sulfur. The stiff standards imposed forced mines to close which could not mine solely for "surface" coal. This coal is easier to mine with less impacts than the mining deep into the mountains which results in increased negative impact due to the nature of the mining. Result: the legislation in the end cost Virginia jobs and two thirds of its mines.

Virginia does not come in high on the list of production though we produce 4 times what we consume but the top five are Wyoming,West Virginia, Kentucky, Texas and Pennsylvania. I doubt we want to make the elimination of coal an issue in these states come 2008 who are greater effected economically over the demand for coal than Virginia.

The impact that is missed or often ignored anyway is what would happen to our rail industry as a result of the curbing of coalmining whether mountaintop or otherwise. There would be great pressure through special interest and lobbying over this as 40 to 50% of the rail traffic in the US is associated with coal.

In Virginia 2/3 of rail traffic is Class 1 coal freight by CSX and Norfolk Southern. These two contribute quite a bit toward campaign finance. Any reduction or end towards rail traffic or successful strong environmental legislation in this area will meet with huge opposition. Just saying, thats going to be a fight.

I know we all think of the strip mining of old but I hope that technology and innovation in this industry can be brought up to reduce negative impacts with carbon capture and the like. I would endorse the expansion of North Anna Power Station and the like but fact is no one seems to want anymore nuclear power plants built in thier backyards and no politicians seem willing to propose the federal funding of that venture though it certainly would provide alot of jobs.

The issue with addressing the coal industry is unfortunately just that, jobs. It should be about the environment but it will not be. Virginia experienced the pain resulting from the result of the Clean Air Act and many then were promising that new jobs and capital would come into those areas and it never did. Some localties still twenty plus years later have not recovered.

Its easy to say that technology and new energy policy provisions will bring in jobs to replace the industry lost, but these areas have heard and seen that kind of rhetoric before.

There needs to be a state of balance between the economic impacts and the environmental interest we all share moving forward. This is a delicate issue for any statewide candidate even in Virginia and from a political perspective very dicey given again Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania have the most to lose economically if no mountaintop mining is permitted or tougher environmental legislation is proposed or passed by Congress.

HR 2169 may be the first shot fired and I will watch with interest just how it comes down through committee and what the language in the end becomes.

I do disagree about a few things.

1) Mountaintop removal/strip mining does not have less impact on the land than deep mining.
Taking 600-1000 vertical feet off the top of a mountain, and then filling the adjacent stream valleys with the waste is about the worst impact you could have on the Appalachian Mountains. The forest will not go back for 100s of years, and at most reclamtion sites, they just spray hydroseed (a worthless exotic grass that you could spray on a tractor and it would grow) and run. The ancient, biodiverse forest will probably never return. At least not for many many many generations. The impact is also a lasting one on the local communities, many which were there long before mining began, and which will remain long after the mining is gone. Mountaintop removal transfers the dangers inherent in mining from the proffesional miner onto the citizens and communities surrounding the mines through flyrock, flooding, and poisoned water. That, to me, is not OK.

2) Its the coal companies, not the "environmentalists" that are costing miners their jobs.
Mountaintop removal is used specifically because it employs fewere workers. Look at production in WV, compared to jobs.
http://farm3.static.... width=350>
Mines didn't shut down because of the Clean Air Act of the 70s (not the 80s.) But we have already mined most of the easy to get coal. We even import some coal now. Contrary to what you say, Virginia already imports coal from Indonesia, and the United States is set to become a net importer of coal in the next 7 or 8 years.
http://farm2.static.... width=400>

We simply have to start looking at other domestic options in regards to energy if we want to stay strong as a nation. We also have to look at how we can sustain the economy of the coal producing communities after the coal is gone. The most commonly cited potential replacement would be through tourism, which supplies an enormous amount of money to the Appalachians, and keeps the "non-coal-producing" counties of Appalachia much more financially well off than the coal-producing counties.

I am curious as to the effects on the railroads. Jeff Goodell goes into that in some detail in his book "Big Coal," which is an excellent, excellent read.

This is indeed a complex issue, and the need to look at all sides is greatly appreciated. I hope we can continue this conversation, and that you're having a nice morning.

I also wanted to use one more, to show that it is in fact, the coal companies and the mining techniques we are using that are making the coal so expensive (central appalachian coal is the most expensive domestically), and why we are losing so many jobs.

Central Appalachian coal costs have doubled in the past decade. Not because of "environmentalists," but because we are using extreme mining techniques to get the difficult, hard to get coal.

On the issue of employment, it something we can also handle.  We can create special economic zones to draw entrepreneurs to those areas and aid ones already there.  We could give seed money to help start-up businesses.  And we can provide training opportunities so that people can transition to other jobs.  All of those things require political will at the state level and at the federal level.  Political will is something we must create.

But we are not going to start by ending coal production.  We must start with demand management before moving to supply considerations.  We have to start by dramatically increasing energy efficiency through both rewards and punishments for consumers.  From there we build on that by changing the mix of electric generation.  We will need more nuclear in the short term.  We will need to make solar panels dramatically more affordable to middle class Americans.  We will need to expand wind and geothermal generation.  And at the end of the day, we will need to favor natural gas fired generation over coal for the balance of what is needed.  That is not going to happen overnight; and in the transition period, we can start moving people out of coal and into other sectors of the economy.

But don't cry for lost coal production.  All things must come to end, and that is not bad.

In Virginia it is a difference now between steam coal and metallurgical(sp?) coal. The coal beds deemed surface coal are easier to mine and cheaper to mine to be sure with lower sulfur than that of the deep mountain mining.

Much of our Virginia coal is transported by rail to the port of Charleston, SC for shipping abroad as well and that is another issue. Again we produce 4 times what we consume here. What are getting in terms of price on the market for our coal shipped internationally? How is it impacted by our trade agreements if at all?

You must be wrong about Charleston, SC.  According to the EIA's information on exports per customs district, Charleston has only exported 118 short tons for the first half of this year.  More likely the coal would be going to Norfolk, which has exported more than 9.5 million short tons in the first half of this year.

Last, do you advocate repealing the Clean Air Act?  It sounds like you have a problem with reductions in sulfur releases.  Do you like acid rain?  Are you aware of the effects of acid rain?

It is interesting that we are importing coal when we have so much. It must be cheaper to import the coal than to mine it domestically. Does that mean some one else is using cheap and expendable labor for this? Should we condone labor practices that were last seen in the U.S. in the 1930s?

The kind of policies that would reduce green house gases would also reduce the need for coal. A transportation policy that emphasized the increase of public transport would reduce petroleum use and increase coal use for electricity, but would have a net improvement in energy use and cleaner air. It is easier to clean up point sources of pollution like coal fired electric plants than scattered sources like automobiles.

Requiring coal fired electric plants to have all the filters, scrubbers, carbon sequestration, etc. that is technically possible would raise the cost of coal use and make alternatives more economically viable.  But, the cost of electricity will rise perhaps substantially. Higher prices will be a great encouragement to conservation of energy.  Prices will go up anyway as supply gets shorter over time.  We might as well start taking the hit now rather than later to stretch out the supply.

Also, reducing our production of coal is not going to have a dramatic impact on steel production.  Electric power consumption accounts for 92% of coal usage in the U.S.  By reducing the number of coal fired generators, we can shut down a lot of mines across the country.

Obama has been the only one of the big three to talk about mountaintop removal, and he opposes it. Edwards voted for more MTR in 1999, and Clinton has been silent. I support Obama because of this issue and his judgement on the war, though I hope he finds a more aggresive voice in the next two months.