Coal is still a valuable asset with many beneficial uses

November 19, 2024

Over recent years the amount of coal used in the US for producing electricity has dropped dramatically. This same decline can be seen across the globe, with 100 countries that have either gone coal-free or have set 2040 as a phase-out date.

The environmental movement is responsible for most of this, prompted by the Paris Agreement in 2015, where 75 nations focused on doing away with coal use by 2050. The environmental faction tells the story that burning coal is a major factor in what they say is the dangerous over-abundance of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere.

To correct this problem, we must stop using fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to produce electricity, power vehicles or other uses. Even if it is true that we have too much CO2 in the atmosphere — and more than a few scientists argue that position isn’t true — this perspective ignores that fossil fuels contribute to our lives in other ways that are quite useful in addition to producing the power on which we rely so heavily.

And let’s not ignore the idea of many scientists that the level of CO2 in our atmosphere not only should not be reduced, but should be doubled to promote the growth of plant life. Plants and trees consume CO2 and release oxygen, which is critical to human life, into the atmosphere.

On this topic, Mining Digital tells us that “The demise of steam coal — also known as thermal coal — has been well documented, as investors shy away from the fossil fuel that fired the Industrial Revolution and has been an energy mainstay pretty much ever since, save for the past decade or so. Yet one corner of the coal market is thriving: metallurgical coal, otherwise known as coking coal, and vital for making steel.”

Coal is a critical part of steel, and steel is a huge factor in so many things, such as in buildings, as reinforcing rods in concrete, in bridges, tools, ships, trains, cars, bicycles, machines, electrical appliances, furniture, and weapons.

Oil is also used in many things, like plastics, fertilizers, petrochemicals crayons, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, tires, ammonia, lubricants, coolants and paints.

So, you see, these fossil fuels have other uses as well as their contribution to electricity production and propelling vehicles and other devices of various descriptions. But the Biden/Harris administration, with its myopic view of reality and the manic anti-fossil fuel attitude of the left, wants to destroy fossil fuels, and especially coal, which has been, and can still be, so valuable to our region.

While coal use is still declining, and coal-fired power plants are fewer and fewer, the rate of that decline has slowed recently, as power demand is rising for datacenters and manufacturing entities.

And a forecast from S&P Global Commodity Insights points to this as a lifeline for coal power. “But tech companies are building power-hungry datacenters to support new artificial intelligence applications. Additional demand from new datacenters will double in just a year, to 47,448 GWh (Gigawatt hours) between 2024 and 2025, and rise more than eightfold by 2030 to 199,982 GWh.”

President-elect Donald Trump named former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is thought that the EPA will ease regulations affecting fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Trump said of Zeldin, who served in the House from 2015 to 2023, that he will ensure “fair and swift” deregulatory decisions. The result of this will be a boon to American businesses and still maintain the highest environmental standards.

Zeldin said in a recent statement that, “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

E&E News offered this idea of what will happen. “Some of the most stringent rules enacted by the Biden administration will likely end up in the dust bin, such as the agency’s regulations to reduce climate pollution from power plants, according to analysts. Other standards may survive in a weakened form, like the administration’s rules to lower methane emissions.”

“I think the power plant rule is pretty easy for them to revoke,” said Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA’s air chief under President George W. Bush. “There’s really no one in industry who supports that rule. People just think that EPA was entirely unrealistic.”

Fortunately for those businesses and individuals who support the continued use of coal, not only for power production, but also for the other uses it has, the onset of the Trump/Vance administration is a breath of fresh air. 

Reversing the Biden administration’s mindless restrictions on coal, oil and other fossil fuels will allow the US to regain its position as energy independent, bring back to our country the sale of coal and gas that was sent to other countries by Biden’s orders, and bring down the needlessly high prices for gasoline and diesel fuel.

These changes will not restore the thriving coal industry of a few decades ago, but will allow its use for energy production as well as other positive purposes that have recently come to light.

Could the region possibly see a return of the good old days?

July 18, 2023

Those of us fortunate enough to be around this area in the 40s, 50s and 60s probably remember what Bluefield was like, back then. One of my vivid memories is in the years after WHIS-TV went on the air in 1955. The TV station and its radio siblings, WHIS-AM and FM were located on the third floor of what was then the Municipal Building on Bland Street, and is now the Arts Center.

I liked the TV and radio stations and hung around there a good bit. I remember standing at the windows overlooking Bland Street at 5:00 p.m. watching two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic slowly crawling out of the downtown area. 

At that time the downtown was filled and thriving: clothing stores, furniture stores, pharmacies, office buildings, banks, a music store, hotels, restaurants, a newspaper, railroad buildings, and more. Bluefield was the shopping center and banking center for the southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia coal fields, where tens of thousands of regional residents lived and worked.

The rail yard was filled with hundreds of train cars, both those dozens filled with coal getting ready to head out, and those empty cars ready to be filled up again. Empty tracks were not visible until you were out of the downtown area of both Bluefields.

The coal industry isn’t what it once was, due to natural and manmade events. Coal became naturally replaced for some uses by other fuels. But it also was targeted by governments, which caused great distress well before the job and business losses should have occurred, and over a much shorter time period than was either necessary or judicious.

Today, a large faction wants coal and other fossil fuels to be abandoned in favor of cleaner, “green” energy sources. But fortunately, there is still a need for these fuels, not only in America, but across the globe.

“Coal is an abundant natural resource that can be used as a source of energy, as a chemical source from which numerous synthetic compounds (e.g., dyes, oils, waxes, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides) can be derived,” Britannica.com explains, “and in the production of coke for metallurgical processes,” such as making steel.

Although burning coal for heat and energy are heavily opposed, coal is still a major source of energy for electricity, particularly in other countries like China and India. Also, the gasification and liquefaction of coal produce gaseous and liquid fuels that can be easily transported by pipeline and stored in tanks.

Britannica.com adds, “After the tremendous rise in coal use in the early 2000s, which was primarily driven by the growth of China’s economy, coal use worldwide peaked in 2012. Since then coal use has experienced a steady decline, offset largely by increases in natural gas use.”

For coal reserves, only China has more than the U.S., but the U.S. has nearly twice as much recoverable coal as China. And the industry is working to make burning coal a cleaner process.

“Meanwhile, more than a quarter trillion tons of coal lie underfoot, from the Appalachians through the Illinois Basin to the Rocky Mountains—enough to last 250 years at today's consumption rate,” according to National Geographic. “You hear it again and again: The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal. About 40 coal-burning power plants are now being designed or built in the U.S., [and] China, also rich in coal, could build several hundred by 2025.”

Clearly, there is and will be for a long time the need for coal produced in the two Virginias, and elsewhere.

Chris Hamilton, President & CEO West Virginia Coal Association, sent out an email thorough Friends of Coal recently, saying, “Throughout our state’s 160-year history, the coal industry has been a major driver behind West Virginia’s economy and billions of dollars of new investment will ensure that similar benefits are generated for the next 160 years.

“Despite all the hype you hear about a zero-carbon economy and transitioning to renewable, or intermittent energy forms, West Virginia’s metallurgical and thermal coals will continue to drive our economy while remaining a stable component of our state and nation’s energy mix,” he wrote.

The email contained some other relevant information:

* World coal use is growing with over 8 billion tons consumed in 2022.

* Coal accounts for over 50 percent of West Virginia’s total export product.

* West Virginia-produced coal accounts for over 40 percent of our nation’s total coal exports.

* Forty countries and 30 states rely on West Virginia coal to power their energy needs.

* West Virginia produces the highest quality metallurgical coal found anywhere in the world and 69 percent of the base fuel for domestic steel making.

The coal industry may not again become the powerful local economic engine it was back in the day, but it is still responsible for over $14 billion in annual economic activity for the state, provides 50,000-plus West Virginia jobs, and provides substantial severance tax collections for the state.

The coal reserves in our region constitute an opportunity to provide a product that the nation and the world will need for quite a while in the future, and an economic boost for the region.

The War on Coal couldn’t erase industry’s history or its future

  

The story of coal in West Virginia is a long one, with ups and downs. And while the industry and individuals in it have suffered, coal has survived a concerted effort to kill it completely.

 

Coal has been in use by humans for hundreds of years. In the early years, most coal used in the American colonies came from England or Nova Scotia. But during the American Revolution, the wartime needs spurred “small American coal-mining operations such as those in Virginia on the James River near Richmond. By the early 1830s mining companies had emerged along the Ohio, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers and in the Appalachian region,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

 

Coal for many years was the major fuel in producing electricity, and more recently, through gasification and liquefaction, is used to produce gaseous and liquid fuels that are easily transported by pipeline and conveniently stored in tanks. 

 

The Green Energy mania, spurred on by often exaggerated, funding-oriented “scientific” data dealing with the increase and dangers of CO2, and the need for America to increase its world-leading CO2 reduction efforts, produced the foolish War on Coal of former-President Barack Obama’s administration.

 

This myopic governmental overreach put thousands of Americans out of work and severely damaged state and local economies, but thrilled the Green Energy crowd.

 

The coal industry was already well down the path of being phased out in the natural transition from coal and other fossil fuels to efficient, less-expensive, cleaner and plentiful natural gas, and also the currently inefficient, but preferred renewable sources, such as wind and solar energy.

 

How much more sensible it would have been to allow these natural changes to gradually work their way into being without the heavy damage caused by this irrational War.

 

Years ago, the coal industry had already lost many jobs of miners and other industry workers through the impact of mechanization. And the government efforts to end coal as a viable and needed product further damaged coal mining regions like those of southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia.

 

However, other nations still are using and need coal, and the industry has sputtered along filling those needs, and still exists today. Not surprisingly, these nations far out-pace the United States in CO2 emissions, but hardly get anything like the official grief that America received from the “green energy at any cost” crusade.

 

Even supporters of the coal industry understand that burning coal is a significant source of pollution, and development of cleaner ways to utilize this useful and plentiful resource are on-going. While coal is now responsible for only 11 percent of electricity production in the United States, clean coal technologies have produced some significant improvements in coal usage, which are welcomed.

 

Turning coal into synfuels, which are gases and liquids that produce less pollutants when burned than does pure coal, is one way that coal can still be a useful product. South Africa has been converting coal to liquids for decades. Other gases and liquids derived from coal function as chemicals in the production of other products.

 

A plant in North Dakota converts coal into synthetic natural gas, called “syngas.” Electricity and hydrogen are made from syngas. And a company in Wheeling, West Virginia is now working to find additional alternative uses for coal.

 

Wheeling’s Touchstone Research Laboratories is working to develop high-value-added coal raw materials that can make several products, such as carbon foams, graphites, graphene and carbon fiber.

 

A strong, fireproof carbon foam, called CFOAM, has already been developed by Touchstone, and is used in the aerospace industry to make molds for manufacturing carbon fiber rocket nozzles, and in science for the most powerful telescope in history, the James Webb Space Telescope.

 

As new uses for coal emerge, new interest in West Virginia coal follows.  Governor Jim Justice announced in his State of the State address that Ramaco Carbon will be opening a new research facility in South Charleston’s Technology Park.

 

Ramaco CEO and chairman Randall Atkins, said that the company will use that facility until it outgrows it, and then expand to other locations in the state. The opening of that facility, as with so many other things, has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Ramaco announced in June that it has entered into a five-year coal-to-products cooperative research and development agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest U.S. Department of Energy science and energy laboratory, to study converting coal to high-value products and materials.

 

There is global interest in clean coal technology, as well. In 2019, this sector invested $3.7 billion, and projections say that figure will surpass $4.6 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 2.9 percent.

 

No one expects that coal will ever again enjoy the huge employment figures or the quantities of mined resources of years past. But there are bright spots on the horizon for using West Virginia and Virginia coal that will offer direct and indirect employment to hundreds of people, and produce tax revenues for state and local governments.

 

We would be further down that path today, had President Obama had the foresight to reimagine coal usage a decade ago.