{"id":285417,"date":"2023-10-28T14:40:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T12:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=285417"},"modified":"2023-10-28T14:40:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T12:40:24","slug":"no-green-energy-future-without-coal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=285417","title":{"rendered":"No Green Energy Future Without\u00a0Coal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The green eco- socialists condemn coal but what kind of energy do they need for creating a clean energy future?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Teresa Mull writes at American Spectator Why \u2018dirty\u2019 coal is vital to a \u2018clean\u2019 green future.<\/strong> <\/a>Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Any time you have energy, you have to dig something out of the ground\u2019<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The under reported truth, however, is that\u00a0coal is key to the continuation of civilization as we know it<\/strong>. Apart from \u201cproviding\u00a0more than 36 percent of global electricity\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0and accounting for \u201cnearly one-quarter of the electricity in the United States\u201d (per the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration), coal is\u00a0necessary in the production of steel and other metals<\/strong>\u00a0and is used in the manufacturing process of other materials city folk love, including cement. Coal is also critical in bringing about the \u201cgreen, renewable\u201d future we are told is inevitable (not to mention our first-world luxuries: smartphone batteries, fluorescent lights, computer monitors, etc.).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are\u00a0fifty critical minerals and metals<\/strong>\u00a0in our beautiful black coal, and in the clay beneath needed to produce electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, rechargeable batteries, and so forth. Sarma V. Pisupati, professor of energy and mineral engineering and director of the Center for Critical Minerals at Pennsylvania State University, explains that the\u00a0United States imports more than 50 percent of forty-three of those elements from other countries, and twelve of those fifty minerals are 100 percent imported.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Such a strong reliance on foreign countries, especially China,<\/strong> which the German Marshall Fund of the United States reports \u201cdominates global critical mineral supply chains, accounting for approximately 60 percent of worldwide production and 85 percent of processing capacity,\u201d is \u201can urgent matter of national security,<\/strong>\u201d says Pisupati.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is where Pennsylvania \u2014 and Penn State \u2014 come in.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) shows that \u201cabandoned mine problem areas have been identified in forty-three of Pennsylvania\u2019s sixty-seven counties.<\/strong>\u201d Pennsylvania has some 5,000 miles worth of streams that have been polluted by acid mine drainage (AMD). In my own backyard (in Centre and Clearfield Counties), abandoned strip mines,<\/strong> described by our township solicitor as \u201clunar in nature,\u201d are a playground for us backwoods folk. \u201cThe strippin\u2019s\u201d are where teenagers meet up to party under cover of steep high walls, coal refuse (or \u201cboney\u201d) piles and scraggly trees, side-by-side riders rip over rutted roads in packs each weekend and hillbillies sight-in their hunting rifles.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet in recent years, these \u201clegacy coal mines,\u201d<\/strong> as Pisupati calls them, have been garnering attention. Not because environmental agencies have seen the light about how important coal is, the strides the industry has made to purify the process, or because they\u2019ve realized that re-mining is sometimes the only way to get to underground water discharges<\/strong> and address them, but<\/strong> because coal and its byproducts are a source of the critical elements necessary for a \u201cgreener\u201d future.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause the old [pre-1977] coal mines were not under the new regulations, they were left abandoned, and there is a lot of water flowing through those old mines which gets oxidized, and there is a lot of acid coming out of that,\u201d Pisupati says. \u201cThat acid actually brings out the rare earth elements and critical elements from the mines, so nature is doing some of this extraction for us.<\/strong> It could be viewed as a blessing in disguise, because right now we are importing these critical minerals from elsewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAcid mine drainage is flowing through those old mines and polluting our streams, so if we treat them to get these elements out, we\u2019re actually doing a favor, and taxpayers don\u2019t have to pay to clean these waters up<\/strong> if we generate money off of [the pollution]. There is work to be done, but it can be achieved so we can reduce our imports, we can make these materials right here, and we can clean up our environment.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWaste\u201d produced from extracting and burning coal<\/strong> is increasingly becoming a misnomer. That \u201cboney,\u201d comprised of low-quality, \u201cjunk\u201d coal<\/strong> mounded together with shale, clay, and other materials discarded during the mining process<\/strong>, for instance, is strewn in mountains, or \u201cspoil piles,\u201d throughout the region, \u201cand the fly ash associated with coal-fired power plants are a potential source of critical minerals,\u201d<\/strong> reports Penn State.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one time, this low-quality coal and boney had no use and was piled up along old mines. Mountains of it literally surround my hometown. But now boney can be used in cogeneration (\u201ccogen\u201d) plants<\/strong> to generate electricity. According to Arnold, cogen plants \u201cuse fluidized bed combustors that operate at a lower temperature to capture all the sulfur.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So if mining coal has the effect of unearthing the rare earth elements we so desperately need to combat \u201cclimate change,\u201d and we need coal to make the cement and steel necessary to erect solar panels and wind turbines, and re-mining old abandoned mines offers the opportunity to extract even more rare earth elements while also cleaning up badly polluted lands and waters \u2014 the government should be handing out mining permits liberally, right?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGetting remining permits is not easy,\u201d Pisupati says.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is obtaining a permit an expensive, onerous challenge, but one of the area\u2019s few remaining coal operators likens getting a mining permit to \u201ca criminal sentence.\u201d<\/strong> It used to be that DEP inspectors would work with operators, or as a former operator puts it, \u201cThey\u2019d tell me what we needed to do, and we\u2019d do it.\u201d Yet as fossil fuels, and coal in particular, are increasingly demonized,<\/strong> the regulatory rope tightens, unfriendly administrations impose harsh mandates.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And mining coal becomes more of a complicated, extremely costly burden
than the prosperity-generating industry that
helped the US win back-to-back world wars.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t get anything done with DEP breathing down your neck,\u201d one coal operator tells me. \u201cWhen you do get it done, it costs four times what it should and takes four times as long<\/strong>. And while green energy doesn\u2019t work, and gets subsidized<\/strong>, we can\u2019t survive without coal \u2014 and coal gets taxed like crazy!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To mine coal, you see, you must first get that permit, which can take months, if not years.<\/strong> The engineering required to apply for the permit could run you in the hundreds of thousands of dollars<\/strong>, before you\u2019ve dug so much as a shovel full of dirt.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, you invest millions in heavy equipment<\/strong> (a new Caterpillar 992 loader runs about $1.8 million \u2014 you\u2019ll need a couple at each job site), fuel, wages, etc. You have payments on those machines and payroll to meet, so you hope your permit gets issued quickly!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the coal operator must post a performance bond,<\/strong> carefully calculated on each cubic yard of dirt he moves, combined with the prevailing price of diesel fuel. After the operator has removed the coal, but before he backfills, he must purchase and add hundreds of tons of limestone per acre to offset the possibility that he has exposed acidic rock that could affect nearby water quality. Meanwhile, his every move is scrutinized, and he is frequently fined by an overzealous career bureaucrat.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, if you happen to \u201ctouch\u201d water associated with an old mine<\/strong> that predates the 1977 regulations, says Rachel Gleason, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, \u201cYou\u2019re responsible for treating it for the rest of its life.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMeanwhile,\u201d as an operator remarks, \u201cit\u2019s been making a mess for 100 years.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gleason points out that all active coal operations in Pennsylvania are fully bonded<\/strong> to the cost for DEP to reclaim them, to the tune of more than $1 billion.<\/strong> Despite the operators putting up \u2014 and risking \u2014 so much of their own fortunes, ESG initiatives inhibiting would-be operators\u2019 abilities to get bank loans, and the fact that operators must have a proven track record to be permitted at all, there is \u201cdefinitely a lot of regulatory uncertainty\u201d that makes it \u201cmore difficult to mine, more expensive, and the [regulations] are constantly changing.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen efforts to shut down industry outright aren\u2019t accomplished,
they try to kill the industry with the strike of a thousand swords.\u201d<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you take a step forward,\u201d an operator tells me, \u201cthe inspectors just want to push you a step back.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pisupati acknowledges there are \u201csome gaps still in knowing how much we have, what we have, and where we have [it],\u201d and that\u00a0more exploration is needed to find the highest concentrations of critical elements.<\/strong>\u00a0He says we \u201cdefinitely need a project like the Manhattan Project to get out of this import-reliance situation.\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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