Remember cold fusion? It's such a joke now that it's hard to recall the level of excitement that attended those first announcements. It really did seem that we had found "an out," a solution to the energy problem that was simple, clean, and cheap. The revolutions promised by this change were inestimable.
One morning, at the height of the cold fusion "buzz," I went into my boss's office and found him looking at a magazine with a cold fusion "cell" on the cover. Over four decades, this man had been an academic, the head of the coal division for a geological survey, the director of geology for the world's largest coal company, and an international consultant. In many areas, he'd been the one who mapped and put names to the strata where coal beds were found. He was one of the nation's foremost coal geologists.
He looked up at me that morning, and I was surprised to see there were tears in his eyes. "Thank God," he said. "Thank God we don't have to do this anymore." He put down the magazine and looked around his office, decorated with maps of coal fields, mining lamps, and images from mines around the world. "This is," he said, "an awful business."
It's still an awful business, and unfortunately replacing coal in our energy budget is not going to be as easy as putting a cold fusion cell in every home. It's not going to come from magic, and it's not going to fall like manna from heaven. It's going to take hard work, serious investment, and a dedication to change. In the meantime, we have an electrical grid where 51% of the power is generated by coal. That's a monster that demands to be fed. Every day.
But it doesn't have to be fed through mountaintop removal. Overall, mining in Appalachia represents a decreasing share of our energy picture. Most of our production these days comes from western mines, especially those located in the Powder River Basin that sprawls across Wyoming and Montana. The coal there is thick -- commonly seventy feet thick or more -- and a good deal of it is quite shallow. That means you can get more coal by moving less material. More than 120,000 tons of coal can be extracted from a single acre. The mines in that area can still be huge (a single mine in Wyoming has produced over a billion tons of coal), but relative to other areas they're not that expansive. And because so much coal is extracted from a single acre, the states involved can afford to be tougher about reclamation. They can, and do, make companies number, photograph, and store surface boulders that were there before mining, so they can be put back in place. They can make them keep greenhouses full of native grasses and "weeds" so that the vegetative mix is restored. They can make sure topsoil and subsoil are stored and returned.
Mining is an awful business. So if it has to be done in the short term, why not do it in remote locations where few people are impacted by the blasting and the dust, in places of low biodiversity where the disturbed area is a relatively small part of a large ecosystem, and in areas where coal is thick enough that mines have an inventive to practice decent reclamation?
That's not Appalachia. There are a number of coal seams in the mountains, but they rarely exceed ten feet thick. Three, four, or five feet is more common. In mountaintop removal mining, companies typically extract about one tenth the amount of coal per acre as is produced in the west. To be competitive, they don't even attempt to restore the contours of the land to their original configuration. They chop hundreds of feet from the top of the mountains and dump the rubble into surrounding streams. They do a miserable, halfhearted job of restoring the mix of hardwood trees and undergrowth that blankets the ancient hills -- partly because they also do a miserable job of ensuring the land's productivity. They leave behind a seeping, festering wound that will never, not in a decade, not in a thousand years, match the surrounding landscape. Why do coal companies lobby so hard for mountaintop removal? Because it's a technique that lets them get away with the sloppiest, most destructive practices imaginable to save a buck.
If all mining is a cancer on the land, Mountaintop removal is invasive, aggressive lung cancer. It rips up fragile, biologically diverse forests and ruins streams. It floods communities that are dozens of miles away. By eliminating the trees, it even reduces the natural "carbon sink" of the forest, worsening the effect of burning the coal. It never heals, it's spreading, and relaxed regulations promise that it will spread ever faster.
So here's your chance to play surgeon.
The Clean Water Protection Act is designed to stop mine waste from filling streams and turning rivers into sludge. If we can get it out of committee and enacted into law -- make that, if you can do this -- it will reverse the Bush administration's relaxed rules on mountaintop removal and put a halt to most of these operations. There are already 107 cosponsors for the bill in the House. Check the list to see if your representative is already on board. If so, thank them and let them know this issue is important to you. If not, it's even more important that you contact them and tell them to sign on.
Check after the break for a list of kossacks who have already taken the time to talk to a representative about this issue. And if you have any questions on mountaintop removal, read Patriot Daily's highly informative diary, which puts a sense of scale on this problem.
My Heroes
These kossacks have taken a moment to contact a representative about the Clean Water Protection Act. In some green future, when the mountains have been saved and the streams flow free, look for these names carved into the hillside No, no no! Engraved on a nice plaque. Sheesh.
Those in bold have already contacted at least five representatives. Rock stars, all.
afguy08 | rlamoureux | faithfull |
plf515 | susie dow | Mogolori |
Leslie in CA | neia | crose |
cham | Jim in AZ | betson08 |
Jersey Joe | SethO | LisaZ |
ezdidit | emmasnacker | RunawayRose |
bklynDrew | prodigalkat | goblin |
Gabriele Droz | gloryous1 | slksfca |
waitingforvizzini | madgranny | Janet Strange |
Prof Dave | QuarterHorseDem | Count Imbroglio |
willb48 | word is bond | beabea |
WeatherDem | lgmcp | AntKat |
LJR | dgil | makfan |
Elise | alicia | Lazyhorse |
takeback | dashat | mon |
taxismom | keepyourcoins | va dare |
AAbshier | Unduna | Wary |
Clytemnestra | blueteam | northsylvania |
tarantula | pattyp | peagreen |
shermanesq | Traveling Companion I | teacherken |
Mary Mike | Janie | annetteboardman |
TN yellow dog | howardpark | SolarMom |
Grouchy Cowboy | aarlene | 4jkb4ia |
A Siegel | tarantula | arainsb123 |
randallt | nautilus1700 | jct |
FischFry | AlecBGreen | Mannabass |
paprog | EthrDemon | Chucho |
peace voter | ETinKC | Prof Dave |
OrangeClouds115 | ZAPatty | Jeremiah |
roses | WhitesCreek | el vasco |
Dicken | Fiona West | Glacial Erratic |
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse | DoGooderLawyer | Janie |
Magster | 4Freedom | planetclaire4 |
rhubarb | crose | Nikki4me |
cynndara | oregonian37 | MissInformation |
If I missed anyone, please let me know.