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November
30
2020

Coal Country Can Retool Itself To The New Energy Future
James Conca

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute came out with a really interesting study on how Coal Country can, and must, redefine itself in the energy future that is emerging.

Coal Miners

Coal mining is a way of life in historically coal-producing communities. While decarbonizing the economy is a driving force for decreasing the use of fossil fuels, the steadily decreasing use of coal in America has occurred because of the favorable economics and unanticipated abundance of natural gas through fracking, and will continue regardless of climate policies or environmental regulations, which have played only a small role.

The world is a different matter. Coal is still increasing in developing countries because if you are a poor country with little infrastructure, all you can do is emplace coal. It is a major factor in China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, their 21st century version of the Silk Road, that plans to build almost $2 trillion of infrastructure in developing countries, making those countries major commercial partners with, and majorly dependent on, China. Coal is at the center of that project’s energy strategy.

Proomoted

But as coal decreases in America, those communities that developed hand-in-hand with coal over a hundred years are hurting and how they transition to another economy is difficult but doable.

The American coal industry is centered in three regions: the Western region, the Appalachian region, and the Interior region. The top five coal-producing states in 2018, accounting for 71 percent of the nation’s coal resources, were Wyoming, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Kentucky. American coal production peaked in 2008 at 1,171.5 million short tons (MMst), but by 2019, total coal production had dropped to 706 MMst, a drop of 40%.

This trend, along with extensive automation, has wreaked havoc on coal’s workforce, whose size has declined by 39% between 2009 and 2016. The pandemic has also hit this workforce hard. The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast that coal production would decline by 25% in 2020, and over 6,000 coal mining jobs were lost in March and April 2020 alone.

Coal and Renewables

The energy mix of individual states are changing fast as coal declines, and natural gas and ... [+] EESI
On a national level, clean energy jobs will surpass coal jobs lost, but the uneven geography of wind and solar resources means that retraining fossil fuel workers to work in renewable energy will not be sufficient on its own to solve the workforce displacement problem. Wind and solar resources are not very good in the regions where coal resources are good. And areas where coal has been king are areas that are very skeptical of renewables.

But the focus of retooling a region’s workforce must not simply shift economies from being exclusively focused on one industry to being focused on another single industry, or assume that displaced coal workers want to, or are even able to, move to these new jobs.

Instead, the transition should promote economic diversification, which will better mitigate the shock created by the decline of one industry. Since coal industry jobs tend to pay relatively high wages, workforce transition solutions must also help workers maintain their current quality of life.

A detailed perusal of EESI’s study is highly worthwhile, as it covers many economic and workforce transition programs on all levels - national, state, regional and local. Too much to cover here, a few are key.

The U.S. House supports a National Economic Transition Office to coordinate federal activity, expanding clean energy apprenticeship and training programs, reestablishing the Civilian Conservation Corps, and creating a Climate Resilience Service Corps. It also includes a number of strategies aimed specifically at transitioning fossil fuel workers and communities.

For displaced coal workers, the majority staff recommends financial support through wage replacement, health care, and job retraining and placement, along with community-oriented assistance such as coal site reclamation, investment in local leadership and entrepreneurs, temporary supplements for lost tax revenue to ensure essential services, and investments in economic diversification. The report also calls for increased funding for reclamation projects on former coal mines and oil and gas wells.

Key areas to transition into include Fiber Optic/Broadband (important for these primarily rural communities), Environmental Restoration (important since mining activities have taken a horrible toll on the land and waterways), energy efficiency (a huge number of homes and buildings needs to be updated), and expanding entrepreneurship (by overcoming the inherent challenges that all rural entrepreneurs face - low population density, distance to markets, difficulty finding a skilled workforce, and difficulty accessing finance and specialized services).

Some recent federal legislation proposed in Congress specifically for coal include:

- Marshall Plan for Coal Country Act (S.4306)

- Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R.5986)

- American Public Lands and Waters Climate Solution Act of 2019 (H.R.5435)

- Revitalizing the Economy of Coal Communities by Leveraging Local Activities and Investing More (RECLAIM) Act (H.R.2156)

- Clean Energy Worker Just Transition Act (S.2398) which would provide former coal workers unemployment insurance, healthcare, and pensions based on their previous salary.

Other generic and regional programs include:

- Solar Training and Education for Professionals (STEP) program.

- Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization Dislocated Worker Grant

- Assistance to Coal Communities program

- The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Dislocated Worker (DW) State Formula Program

- Abandoned Mine Land (AML) grant program

So the will seems to be there. But it will take persistence and caring for the people affected to cover the long road to success..

Thinking outside of the box could help. If we’re not burning coal for energy, that doesn’t mean we can’t use it for other things. With our new technological wizardry, coal can take the place of wood in almost all applications, not to mention lots of metal, plastic and other materials we can’t live without.

Imagine not cutting down forests anymore as well as not burning coal anymore. Wouldn’t Earth appreciate that?

As Chair of AAPG’s Energy Minerals Division’s Committee on Uranium (Nuclear and Rare Earth Minerals), Michael D. Campbell has been thinking about this a lot. He envisions living and working in a solid-carbon landscape where coal would be the feedstock that was turned into materials that are more efficient and less costly than wood.

The notion of using fossilized dead forests to prevent the destruction of living forests and all that they hold, has a nice feel to it.

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I have been a scientist in the field of the earth and environmental sciences for 33 years, specializing in geologic disposal of nuclear waste, energy-related research, planetary surface processes, radiobiology and shielding for space colonies, subsurface transport and environmental clean-up of heavy metals. I am a Trustee of the Herbert M. Parker Foundation, Adjunct at WSU, an Affiliate Scientist at LANL and consult on strategic planning for the DOE, EPA/State environmental agencies, and industry including companies that own nuclear, hydro, wind farms, large solar arrays, coal and gas plants. I also consult for EPA/State environmental agencies and industry on clean-up of heavy metals from soil and water. For over 25 years I have been a member of Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and many others, as well as professional societies including the America Nuclear Society, the American Chemical Society, the Geological Society of America and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

 

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