- Walker Cat Billboards in WV Tout Coal as Clean and Carbon Neutral
Walker Machinery is a family-owned major supplier of heavy equipment such as Caterpillar to the coal industry in West Virginia and Ohio. Walker’s publicity department is quite active and zealous to portray the beneficial wonders of coal. http://www.walker-cat.com/index.php/www/community/media
So let’s look at the billboards. Is Coal Clean? Is coal Carbon neutral? According to their website, no. At least not in the present tense, as the billboards would have us believe. Rather, Walker says, “Science and technology are reengineering coal to be clean and carbon neutral for the 21st Century.” Hasn’t happened…
http://www.walker-cat.com/index.php/www/community/energy_and_environment
Clean coal for the future? Wouldn’t it be nice? After all, the USA has abundant stores of coal. All our scientists and engineers have to figure out is how to extract the coal without making a mess of the land and water and ecosystems, how to work safely, and how to burn the coal without creating pollutants such as acid, mercury, and carbon dioxide. Just need some handy industry tax subsidies, university helping hands, and some tax supported infrastructure such as the Marshall County coal to liquid plant, this one about $800 million that will produce 60 jobs.
The trouble is (speaking to Walker Machinery here), the technology for clean coal (on the combustion side) is unproven and spurious.
http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/how-clean-coal-cooks-your-brain
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200701/coal.asp
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Coalition_for_Clean_Coal_Electricity
A billboard could be put up today that would be truthful if it said the exact opposite of the Walker ad. Let’s try…”No, Coal. Dirty, carbon spewing.” Because that is the reality of coal past and present.
So is Walker lying? Or just misleading? Here is a link to scriptures on truthtelling that should underscore the importance of conveying clear messages. http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/lying.html
Your thoughts?
September 2, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Ok, so you say clean coal is not a mature industry. Coal liquefaction and gasification have been commercially demonstrated in South Africa and Kingsport, TN. That’s a lot better than the millions of wind turbines that would be required for wind energy, or the virtually non-existent solar panels, and the completely non-existent battery technology that are being touted as the energy of the future.
Yes, mining coal has environmental and social costs, just as every form of energy usuage does also. Why is it not possible to have a dialogue about coal that does not appear to demonize coal mining and coal miners, and coal mining supporters?
I am a Christian, I don’t have any problem with responsible coal mining. I resent the implication that coal mining is somehow a non-christian activity, and that people who engage in the same kind of fact-spinning that
anti-mining supporters do are lying. How hypocritical to suggest that mining supporters need to review biblical injunctions about lying.
Coal has the potential to break our dependence on overseas petroleum, as we learn to practice energy conservation. It has the potential to provide petroleum products in the future as supplies of natural petroleum dwindle. Wouldn’t we be better served to discuss how to use our God given resource more efficiently and responsibly, than to continue to offer simplistic, feel-good solutions to complex problems.
September 3, 2008 at 3:47 pm
God told us we could use resource but He did not tell us to destroy everything to get those resources. In fact He told us to take care of the creation.
We must get off fossil fuels –both foreign and domestic– they will soon be gone…the wind and the sun if forever.
The fossil fuel industries just make us dependent on them–with renewable we can tell them where to put their fuel.
September 4, 2008 at 3:14 am
hpfoss,
I appreciate you taking time to respond. You are correct that coal gasification and liquification has been around for a long time. For example, Germany was making liquid fuel from coal during World War II after their petroleum sources were blockaded.
Yet at this point coal is far from being clean although strides have been made. And coal is far from being carbon neutral, as the technology is uncertain and unproven for sequestration. The point I’m making is that Walker’s billboard message appears as a fact on the ground, now.
Why not a clear message such as, “Working for a future of clean, carbon neutral coal.”? Or, “Yes, we believe coal will become clean and carbon neutral.”
Wind energy and other sustainable energy sources indeed are supplying only a fraction of energy use today. However, this nation has yet to take its national security seriously and implement strong incentives to energy conservation. That latter point is something we ought to both agree on.
We need to believe that God created this planet with sufficient resources to sustain life with sufficiency for all without having to destroy the Earth.
We need to pay more for our electricity? Why? Because coal needs to pay its true costs (which include water, air, and land degradation). It costs much more to mine responsibly, to reclaim land responsibly, to protect the water and air responsibly…something that happens too rarely.
–Allen Johnson