Reply #42: Welcome to DU

[karynnj]

I don't know if you will return to read responses, but I want to answer just in case you do. I did not hear any Democratic leader say anything that attacked the miners killed or coal mining itself. Personally, I can't imagine the courage that it takes to be a coal miner.

Reducing carbon requires massive changes in how we create energy. Coal currently provides half of all the electricity in the United States and it is currently the dirtiest. The current bill does contain at least $10 billion to develop technologies to capture and store emissions from coal-fired power plants - as you can see in the article that started this thread. So, the three Senators who wrote this bill are completely aware that it may be possible to safely capture and store the emissions.

Here is a rough transcript of an interview that Senator Kerry, the most liberal and strongest environmentalist of the three gave that directly answer your concerns. What he says respects the miners and the coal industry. (question excluded because I need to obey the fair use rule that limits me to 4 paragraphs) Here the reporter asks about whether they needed to consider safety as well as cleanness of coal.

SENATOR KERRY: Well, of course there ought to be. I mean, there--look, there are all kinds of provisions on mine safety, but mining is still dangerous and everybody knows that. I don't know--I mean, there's a report--there's an analysis going on right now about precisely, you know, what took place and how. The bottom line is there have been accidents in--in mines, tragically, over many years, and we've lost too many miners, but that's not going to end the industry, nor should it. What we have to do is make it safer. We have to make sure it is safer, but we also need to make sure that the coal we burn is clean, and--and that's what this bill focuses on. There's plenty of other--it's not even in our jurisdiction to be doing the safety component of this, but he cleanliness of it is within this bill's prerogatives, and that's what we need to focus on right now.

MS. CUMMINGS: And have you thought--felt like the explosion has given new ammunition to environmentalists who are still not sold on which clean coal technology can really come clean--

SENATOR KERRY: I do not think so. I do not think that that's specifically going to have an impact on it, I really don't. I think that's a question that stands on its own merits, and whether--I mean, there are many new technologies being explored that a lot of people aren't aware of which could be game-changers for coal. And what we want to do in this bill is accelerate the research and the development of those technologies. I'll give you an example: There's one company out in California that currently takes the gas emissions out of the pipe before it even goes into the air and it turns those emissions into a calcium carbonate substance that's the equivalent of concrete or cement and it can be used in buildings or in roads; that's a game-changer. If that could happen on commercial scale, that's a big deal for coal, and it means that you don't even have to build those pipes that go hide it in the ground. You can use it in a non-geologic, sequestered fashion.

So, I think technology and research, exploration in our laboratories, colleges, universities, and so forth, that's one of the exciting things that will come with this legislation. And I'm convinced, personally--it's in the American DNA that we explore and create and find new ways of doing things, and I'm absolutely convinced we are going to find new ways of providing energy for America, new ways of propelling our automobiles and trucks and our buses and so forth. We're going to find new ways of fueling the engines of our airplanes and so forth. A lot of different things are going to happen because we price carbon in this legislation; that's the key.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35970_Page2.h...

In addition to this part of the interview, Kerry addresses the alternative to legislation, regulation. He argues that legislation is better for the coal industry, because it has the ability to spend the money on researching efficient ways to make coal cleaner.

I can see how the talk on this issue looks to you and your co-workers. Coal, oil, nuclear and gas industries all can sound like they are the enemy. However, without them our society as it is, can't exist. For me, it would be a cold winter in NJ, without heat! But, there is a need to do it cleaner - and as you point out, there are some promising ideas for capturing and storing the emissions.

Now, I don't expect you to become a liberal - anymore than I think you could make me a NJ Conservative, but this issue should not be partisan. It should be based on using science and technology as best we can to create a cleaner environment, while providing the energy we need. With any change this big, we also need the legislators to work to include in their bills provisions to help any regions that become the "losers". As you say, before they eliminate coal, if years from now they do, they need to find industries to move into the affected area. That is what legislation has the power to do, but regulation (via the EPA) can't. (Here's a link to an article that contains a letter from manufacturing state's Senators suggesting provisions they wanted - http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate-change/post-car...

Thank you for coming here to bring the discussion - at least on coal - back to the real people who are affected by things that are abstract to me and others. (I think the last time I saw a piece of coal it was likely 50 years ago when I, as a kid, watched coal being put down a coal chute at my Grandmother's house.)