Published: May 30, 2009 10:29 pm

Future of coal discussed at meeting

The United States is the “Saudi Arabia of coal,” and the future of U.S. energy production is linked irrevocably to coal, according to one local businessman.

Tom Cushman of Phillips Machine Service, an international company based in Beckley, told those at a recent meeting of the Beckley Rotary Club that the United States has a responsibility to utilize its coal reserves.

The U.S. has more coal reserves than any other nation — about 27 percent of the worldwide pie, said Cushman.

At current production rates, coal reserves in the United States will last 223 more years, he added.

In Canada, more coal reserves are being discovered unexpectedly as miners drill for gold.

Coal produced in 2008 in the United States alone was 1.2 billion tons, according to Cushman.

“More than half the world’s oil reserves are in the Middle East, more than half the gas reserves are in Russia and the Middle East,” said Cushman. “Those areas aren’t particularly friendly to our world.”

Cushman urged Rotarians to gather the facts on coal and to make their viewpoints known to state and national leaders.

“The coal industry is important to our company,” said Cushman. “It’s important to you as business leaders and doctors and lawyers here in southern West Virginia.”

President Obama is expected to tighten federal regulations regarding mine safety and strip mining and to establish the nation’s first limit on carbon dioxide from power plant emissions.

Cushman said that while the environment must be a concern of coal operators, federal regulations that restrict coal production and drive up the cost of energy are not a benefit to the nation or world.

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Cushman’s presentation, entitled “The Future of Coal,” included figures gathered by the Energy Institute of America, countering popular arguments of coal mining opponents.

“Coal is not going to go away,” said Cushman. “It can’t go away within our lifetimes, and that’s a good thing because coal is our cheapest energy source.”

About 49 percent of electrical power generation in the nation currently depends on U.S. coal.

“We’re not sending profits overseas, we’re not depending on foreign dictators,” he said. “Furthermore, I’d say coal is a very inexpensive producer of electrical generation, and that’s why it’s still half the pie.”

Although renewable energy sources like wind, hydro and solar are becoming popular buzzwords politically, Cushman said implementing them practically will produce a huge mortgage for upcoming generations.

“Solar, wind and hydro are low-cost alternatives when you talk about operating costs, but you’ve got to add in the capital expenditure needed to put them where they are economically workable,” he said.

According to Cushman, the real cost lies in the fact that wind and solar devices don’t operate at 75 percent of rated capacity as do coal, nuclear and natural gas power plants.

In the case of wind energy, three times the amount of wind turbines must be erected to compensate for the 25 percent capacity factor of the turbines.

“So when you start building arrays of these devices to compete with the standard nuclear, gas and coal, you have to build three times as much,” he reported. “For example, to replace the use of coal at a cost of $2.5 million per wind turbine, you’re looking at needing at least 300,000 units at a total cost of $750 trillion.”

Cushman added that hydro produces 0.40 percent of energy on the current grid, solar is 0.021 percent and wind is 1.1 percent.

The current electricity demand is at 2.23 percent annual growth, measured in billion kilowatt hours. “Because we all want to conserve by using more energy-efficient appliances and devices, we all hope this consumption the part of humans will decrease, Cushman said.

If the growth rate for electricity demand is diminished to 1 percent in 20 years, there will still be an additional one trillion kilowatt hours of energy consumption over the current total, he said.

“Having said that, I would repeat that coal has a piece of the pie, and it’s a big piece.”

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Addressing the issue of carbon neutral coal, Cushman said that human beings produce only 3 percent of all carbon dioxide each year.

He said that while humans must and will protect the environment, the mining industry is going “overboard” to be a good steward.

“We as a society have obligations to look at all of it instead of just wind and solar, because we have got a whole lot of energy available to us for the next several hundred years,” he said.

Cushman said using solar and wind power are not the only ways to reduce carbon emissions.

“Let’s heat our homes with natural gas instead of wasting clean-burning natural gas to generate electricity,” he said. “Let’s use nuclear power to convert coal to liquids and use liquid diesel in our cars because it produces less of everything.

“Nuclear refining of coal produces zero carbon.”

Cushman said while the Environmental Protection Agency is operated by “well-intentioned young people,” they have not always had the life experience to realize the consequences of decisions.

“Make sure your elected officials understand these facts and know that continuing to regulate the coal industry in the fashion we’re being regulated today, over-regulation, (with) impossible hurdles to surface mining ... we’re going to drive jobs out of this part of the world and drive them into the places that don’t have the same regulatory environment,” he said.

— E-mail: jfarrish@register-herald.com