Taking aim at America’s costly coal industry

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.

Mr. Goodell is highly critical of what he sees as an alliance between the Bush administration and the coal and power industry. He believes this has led to a relaxation of mining and air quality regulations and a lack of concern over global warming. We are told that a turning point in the fortunes of the coal industry was the election of George W. Bush.

What are the facts? The capacity of coal-fired power plants has stayed at just 300 million kilowatts for 20 years, and most existing plants are 30 to 40 years old. Growth in demand for electricity has been met by running the coal plants for more hours per day and by a huge increase in the building of power plants fired by natural gas. About 1.1 billion tons of coals are mined every year by 75,000 mine workers. Whereas in 1923 it took over 700,000 miners to produce 560 million tons.

The industry is highly mechanized, with some 70 percent of production coming from surface mines. Only some small non-union mines still follow traditional pick and shovel methods. Mining tragedies still happen, like the recent one at the Sago mine in West Virginia, but mining is much safer than in the past, despite Mr. Goodell’s stories of lax oversight by Bush supporters appointed to the federal government’s Mine Safety and Health Administration.

One of the hidden costs, according to Mr. Goodell, is the environmental impact of surface mining. Before the passage of the 1977 Surface Mining Act, surface mines were not reclaimed, but since then every new mine has had to adhere to a detailed reclamation plan specified in its permit.

On completion of mining, failure to execute the plan triggers large financial penalties. The Office of Surface Mining (OSM) collects a tax on every ton of coal that is mined to pay for reclamation of mines operated before the 1977 Act. So far, OSM has collected $7 billion and spent $5.5 billion on reclamation.

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