Telling the Truth about Dirty Coal: A Letter to the Editor of Kentucky Living
Kentucky Living is the monthly magazine published by the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives and is mailed out to nearly half a million rural electric co-op customers in Kentucky. In the April issue, editor Paul Wesslund took offense to recent television commercials which debunked the myth of "clean coal." Using an "I'm rubber; you're glue" argument, Wesslund in his editorial said that those who were exposing the coal industry's misinformation were the ones telling dirty lies.
KFTC member Doug Doerrfeld responded to Wesslund's editorial with a letter that detailed some of the true costs of coal in Kentucky. A severely edited version of Doug's letter was published in the July issue of Kentucky Living; the electronic version has yet to be posted online. Doug reports that "what they chose to eliminate is quite revealing." You can read Doug's original, full-length letter below.
April 6, 2009
Editor Paul Wesslund’s "From The Editor†column in the April, 2009 Kentucky Living served only to further frustrate an honest discussion of
energy and so called "clean coal.†Mr. Wesslund says, "Denying the past and promise of clean coal is a fundamental lie.†The term "clean coal†was coined by the coal industry well over 100 years ago to combat its bad image. In spite of fierce opposition from the coal industry and its friends in the coal fired electric generation industry, decades of efforts from citizens, scientists and elected officials have resulted in the reduction of some toxic emissions from coal fired facilities. What is disturbing is how dirty coal still remains in all phases of its procurement, use and disposal.
The truth of so called "clean coal†is that since just 1980 over 1,000,000 acres of Kentucky’s forests and all the native life they contained have been bulldozed into piles and burned for surface coal mining. Mountains have been blasted and thousands of miles of streams, and rivers buried or damaged. Kentucky’s streams, rivers and lakes have been made so toxic with mercury contamination from burning coal that there is a statewide advisory on eating fish caught from all our waters.
What is disturbing is how dirty coal still remains in all phases of its procurement, use and disposal.
Kentucky is also a leading state for toxic coal combustion waste impoundments like the TVA site in Tennessee which recently burst. The American Cancer Society links fine particle pollution from coal burning facilities to lung cancer, heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease. Sadly, Kentucky ranks near highest in our nation in the number of people with these diseases. All of these must be included in an honest discussion of so called "clean coal,†and its true costs. It is clear who is in denial in this discussion.
The carbon dioxide released from burning coal is a leading cause of the global warming crisis. The promise of carbon capture and underground storage is a false promise, not because it is technically impossible to do, but because it can never be done in a manner that will be cost competitive on an industrial scale. Simply put, in the carbon constrained near future, electricity generated by coal will be more expensive than electricity generated by wind, water and solar. If carbon capture and storage is pursued the citizens of Kentucky will be burdened with the high cost of this expensive process through large rate increases, state tax subsidies for these billion dollar facilities and ownership and liability of the toxic waste carbon dioxide.
We are in an energy crisis. The era of "cheap electricity,†made possible by the coal industry’s externalization of the many true costs of coal, is over. But there are solutions. I agree with Mr. Wesslund that Grayson Rural Electric and EKPC need to move aggressively in the direction of community based energy efficiency, renewable energy and weatherization programs which will create many local jobs. Demand side management programs need to be greatly expanded. State government must move quickly to pass strong renewable energy and energy efficiency portfolio standards and policies to make widespread implementation of these things affordable to Kentucky businesses and low and middle income Kentuckians.
Doug Doerrfeld
Elliottville, KY
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