Taking aim at America's costly coal industry

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BIG COAL: THE DIRTY SECRET BEHIND AMERICA'S ENERGY FUTURE

By Jeff Goodell

Houghton Mifflin, $25.95, 352 pages

REVIEWED BY WILLIAM T. SMITH

Fifty percent of the electricity used in the United States comes from power plants that burn coal. About 25 percent of our power comes from plants using natural gas, a costly fuel with limited domestic reserves that is also used on a large scale for home heating. (During the recent heat wave, natural gas futures went up 16 percent in one day.) Nuclear power, accounting for 20 percent, has been slow to develop because of safety and cost concerns. Hydropower provides seven percent. Alternatives such as wind and solar will not be major factors in our energy balance for many years.

In "Big Coal," Jeff Goodell draws on three years of research and travels in the United States and China. He went to places where coal is mined, to people who mine it, to the companies who burn it to produce electricity, and he rode the railroads that carry it.

He treats the reader to vivid stories of people on both sides of the debate from coal barons to mining accident survivors, from power company officials to families who claim health problems from power plants. He also relates conversations with researchers who share his view that carbon dioxide from power plants will trigger disastrous climate change.

Mr. Goodell has some harsh things to say about the coal and power industry. He writes that "The rebirth of coal is not just about energy; it is a cultural uprising of sorts . . . that is, in its own way, as reactionary as the public campaign against evolution or gay marriage." He goes on to say that "old coal plants are giant bulwarks against change" and that "America's vast reserve of coal is like a giant carbon anchor slowing down the nation's transition to new sources of energy."

"Big Coal" complains that coal-fired power plants impose great hidden costs on society, not only from climate change but from premature deaths from air pollution, and the environmental impact of both surface and underground mining.