THE FUTURE OF ENERGY IN THE APPALACHIANS

by Vernon Haltom

Just before writing this, I called my mom to wish her a happy 76th birthday. The conversation turned to “back in the day” when she was in high school and living on a farm in Oklahoma, a farm electrified by wind with 1940s technology. The one small wind charger provided enough electricity for lighting and the radio, which the kids gathered around to listen to Superman and the Lone Ranger. Now, 60 years later, our world faces a deadly climate crisis while our politicians and their fossil fuel puppet masters proclaim the wind and sun unreliable and nonviable as energy sources. History, if anyone is left to write it, will surely demonize these criminals who are cooking the planet to line their pockets.

Living in West Virginia, I get to take part in the battle between the well-funded coal industry and what they call “environmental extremists” over the devastating mining method known as mountaintop removal. While Governor Joe Manchin and Representatives Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan propose moratoriums on new wind farms in the state, they rail and wail in support of illegal mountaintop removal fill permits that would bury miles of mountain streams. In classic style, the industry and politicians paint the picture strictly in terms of jobs: if you oppose mountaintop removal mining, you are out to destroy the state’s economy and starve miners’ children. They’ve ignored the fact that most mining job reductions have been the result of mechanization and strip mining and had nothing to do with environmental regulations.

A good number of people in the U.S. are painfully unaware that half of their electricity comes from burning coal; they think it all comes from dams or wind farms. Others believe that strip mining was outlawed. Mountaintop removal’s vast scale of destruction makes it harder to oppose as many people just can’t believe its magnitude. The process begins with the clear-cutting of the forests, with most of the timber either burned or buried. Coal operators then blast large chunks of the mountain and push the rubble into nearby streams and valleys to form valley fills. When they reach a layer of coal, they remove it all and continue the process until all the layers have been extracted. When they’ve finished, the operators “reclaim” the area with a thin layer of topsoil substitute and hydro-seed, a blue-green dyed mixture of nonnative grass seed, fertilizer, and something to make it stick. According to EPA estimates, a half million acres have been affected, with an additional million acres likely by the year 2012 if mountaintop removal is unchecked. Over 1,200 miles of streams have been buried or negatively impacted by valley fills.

To get an inkling of the damage done, just consider the 474,000 metric tons of explosives used in West Virginia in 2005-the explosive equivalent of 27 Hiroshima-style atomic bombs. Kentucky detonated the equivalent of 21 nukes. Then there’s the problem of billions of gallons of toxic coal processing waste sludge. Coal companies either pump it underground where it likely poisons well water, as in Mingo County, W.Va., or store it behind hundreds of earthen dams such as the 2.8 billion-gallon sludge dam above Marsh Fork Elementary School in Raleigh County, W.Va. Nothing about coal production is clean.

However, coal and utility companies would have us believe they have a “clean coal” silver bullet, and that all we have to do is subsidize their schemes to save the planet by burning more coal. Now, coal state politicians are also promoting coal-derived liquid fuels, which they claim will lower fuel costs and free us from our addiction to foreign oil. Unfortunately, slick advertising campaigns mask the truth-the truth that coal gasification power plants are terribly expensive, that carbon capture and storage has not been proven feasible, and that the waste created must be disposed of. The coal-to-liquids advocates hide the truth that the energy input required for this plan doubles the amount of carbon dioxide released, requires vast quantities of water, and would reduce foreign oil imports by a mere 10 percent. Both plans call for greater coal production, meaning greater damage to mountains, forests, streams, and communities.

The real solution-renewable energy from solar and wind-is usually criticized for being too expensive. When the health care costs associated with respiratory disease from coal-fired power plants, the environmental disaster costs (including global climate crisis), and lost forest/mountain/stream function costs are included, coal shapes up as the most expensive of fuels. If the subsidies poured into coal production and burning were instead put into renewable energy development, we could soon reach an economy of scale that would place renewables into widespread usage.

Consider the argument that the wind and sun are too intermittent to be relied upon, and that their technologies are too inefficient. Then consider the fact that the sun and wind were here long before coal and will be here at least as long as our species survives.

Imagine a free, clean fuel that delivers itself. Such reliability and efficiency make any argument for continued reliance on coal nearly laughable. Sadly, our supposed leaders promote false solutions while our planet hangs in the balance. Even some environmental groups are choosing to go along and get along rather than take the challenging stands of groups like Coal River Mountain Watch and movements like Mountain Justice Summer.

I recently had the opportunity to see a wind farm up close. Yes, it was large. But when the birds and crickets in the trees (there were trees!) got quiet, I could just barely hear a gentle swish in the wind. No blasts. No dust clouds. No toxic sludge lakes. No clouds of pollution. And the mountain was still there. In that silence, the clear choice for Appalachia and the world rang like a bell.

Vernon Haltom is co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch (crmw.net), based in Whitesville, W.Va., and a participant in the regional Mountain Justice Summer movement (mountainjusticesummer.org). He lives with his wife, Sarah, who represents the tenth generation of her family to live in the Coal River Valley.