Although coal is the obvious solution to solve the United States’ dependence on foreign oil, environmental factors could squash the effort.

In many respects, the outlook for coal could not be brighter. Coal currently fuels just more than half of all of the electricity generated in the United States. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), that number is projected to increase to 58 percent between now and 2030.

However, there is a chill in the air as we face challenges to both the extraction and use of coal that could seriously dampen, if not threaten, coal’s future.

We stand in this country on coal reserves with a greater energy value than all of the oil in the Middle East. Coal is thus an enormously valuable domestic resource for a country that demands as much energy as the United States. We do not have to import coal, spend enormous sums to find it or worry about a foreign government nationalizing it. Through gasification, coal can be used to meet 15 percent of our nation’s future natural gas needs, helping to moderate natural gas prices and our reliance on imported liquefied natural gas. Likewise, domestically produced coal-to-liquid transportation fuels could help wean us off foreign oil.

In coal mining, safety is paramount. We in the industry are not concerned about the costs to improve safety. We are concerned that safety is being measured only on the basis of increasing costs. When will our critics learn that focusing only on the corporate element and ignoring efforts to affect behavior changes will not improve safety to the levels we all aspire to reach? It is a one-size-fits-all approach. In the meantime, credit is not attributed to those entities that go above and beyond what is mandated, to those whose incidence rates have declined and to those who have attempted to create a sense of personal responsibility for safety in their labor force.

Climate Change
The second major political challenge confronting coal is climate change. Understanding that climate change legislation is virtually inevitable, we must do all we can to make sure such legislation is sensible in recognizing the inevitable role coal will play in the world’s energy future and, thus, the need to develop and deploy technologies that will allow coal to be used in a climate-friendly way.

Coal is going to remain the fuel of choice in China and many other developing economies around the world. As a result, simply curtailing our use of coal in the United States will not address climate change concerns.

Extrapolating from EIA data published in a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, worldwide CO2 emissions are projected to rise by 108 percent between 1990 and 2030.

Even if the United States and the rest of the developed world would stop using coal altogether by 2030, global CO2 emissions would still increase by 78 percent from 1990 to 2030.

Simply reducing the use of coal in the United States, or even its use in the developed world, is not going to address concerns about global climate change. The answer to climate change concerns is not to be found in arbitrarily reducing coal consumption here at home, but in developing advanced clean coal technologies and including carbon capture and sequestration to allow for the continued use of coal in ways that are climate friendly.

For those of us in the coal industry, our quarrel is not with the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is with proposals that ignore the technology pathway that must precede mandatory reductions and avoid punitive economic consequences. Meanwhile, no climate change bill has emerged, despite the urgings of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Not Enough
Reducing U.S. emissions will not significantly mitigate global warming. Capping our emissions unilaterally will be all pain for U.S. consumers and little gain for the environment.

Most experts believe the United States should be investing far more in cutting-edge capture and storage technology. They argue we should be investing at least $2 billion annually for the next 15 years over and above what the federal government is currently spending.

This would be for basic R&D on carbon capture as well as for the large-scale demonstration projects needed for new and existing power plants.

A power plant built today emits 90 percent fewer pollutants than the plant it typically replaces. But more incentives are needed to ease the cost of installing advanced clean coal technologies such as coal gasification and ultra-supercritical pulverized coal technologies.

[The] NMA believes it is critically important that policymakers not put the cart of mandatory controls before the technology horse, and we expect to see legislation advancing a technology solution for carbon management introduced this year.

A technology pathway that is aggressively pursued on an accelerated timetable isn’t just good for coal. It’s also essential for America’s economic well-being and national security. That’s because any realistic examination of this country’s energy future finds that we cannot meet our long-term energy needs without significant coal-based generation.

Managing our Fate
We must look seriously at our position on comprehensive climate legislation. The political landscape is likely to become more unfavorable over time.

And the uncertainty arising from the lack of any resolution of the climate change debate is hurting us in the marketplace. According to an analysis by Black & Veatch, 13 coal-fired power plants with a base-load capacity of 11 gigawatts have been canceled or deferred in the past 12 months.

We need to become more proactive, more committed, more aggressive in pushing the technology pathway.

But success here may require that we address more than just the technology pathway.

If that be the case, we need to broaden our perspective and do what is necessary to put this issue to bed sooner rather than later.

James Roberts is the chairman of the National Mining Association. His opinions are edited from a speech he delivered in January to the West Virginia Coal Association. For more information, visit the National Mining Association Web site at www.nma.org.