Coal

I recently commented on Politico about the useage of coal in this country as an alternative to other energy sources.  In Politico they talked about Jay Rockefeller (D) WV wanting more money invested in coal production and looking at "Clean Coal" and that is great, we should invest, in my never to be bias opinion.  The US has roughly 27% of the World Coal Reserves according the CIA-Factbook and the USGS.  Now that's not to say many other countries don't have coal, many do, in fact coal makes up 29% of Australian exports and Russia has reserves of it and many other resources but getting at it in eastern Siberia is another story.  We have a similar problem with getting at one of the 2 basic types of coal, Anthracite.  Anthracite (hard coal) is harder than it's cousin Bitumious (soft coal) and is usually mined by tunneling whereas Bituminous which is often strip-mined.  Anthracite is close to being considered "Clean Coal" (though there isn't really any such thing as clean coal) since it burns hotter and little is wasted compared to Bituminous.  The trouble with Anthracite is that it is so very hard so when miners are creating the "Gangway" or main tunnel, they often encounter gas or worse, water.  The mountains of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York are loaded with gas and underground rivers.  When I was a teenager there was a major mine accident when a mine was flooded and only one miner survived by crawling up an air shaft. 

As a child whose father spent 36 years of his life underground mining Anthracite in Central Pennsylvania I know a little bit about the topic.  I know what it is to live with family members with "Black Lung" (coal dust that enters the lung tissue) and grow up playing in the coal dirt.  I lived in the county where the Molly Miguires took on the mine bosses and were subsequently hung for their desire to create a better life through a Union.  My father swore he'd never follow his father into the mines but when his brothers were off fighting in WWII and my Grandfather took ill he had no other choice.  He did however make it so that none of us, his sons, would ever have to do the same. 

President O'Bama has seen to it to make "Coal" a "Dirty Word", pun intended.  Yet coal is one of our nation's biggest assets.  Wyoming is the largest producer of coal in the US and some of the World's largest coal mining facilities are in the western states of the U.S., according to the ETA (Energy Information Administration).  Japan is the World's largest improter of Coal and 2nd only to the US in oil imports as they have no natural resources to power their economy.  How many jobs, that we so urgently need right now, is the President going to eliminate? And what will that do to our Trade Deficit? Oh, it's dirty and it's not a "Green" energy source.  I'm sorry wasn't the idea behind the creation of the DOE (Department of Energy) to make us Energy Independent? I guess somebody should inform President O'Bama.

Senator Rockefeller, thank you for standing up for your constituents and helping to make us Energy Independant with the help of COAL!

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