| Road Trippin' -- Where Coal Is King |
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| Written by Samantha Hulkower | |
| Tuesday, 05 August 2008 | |
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EnviroWonk writer Samantha Hulkower is blogging on the road this week as she drives from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, CA. Driving down I-64W through the Appalachian Mountains, we were struck by how many people living in this rural region must be virtually home-bound by high gas prices. West Virginia Register-Herald reporter Fred Pace must have read our minds, because as we opened the morning's paper we saw a front page article about how people in the area were trading in their cars and trucks for motorcycles. One man went from getting 12 mpg in his pickup truck to 65 mpg with his new bike. As if saving over $85 a week on gas wasn't great enough, another man gushed about, "Look[ing] cool riding it." Coal miners have bought out all the dual purpose bikes -- those for both on and off-roading -- we assume so that they can ride right up to the mine rather than having to park and walk over. Speaking of coal mining, we saw a rather disconcerting billboard while driving through the Mountain State. It was sponsored by Walker/Caterpillar and read, "YES, COAL." and in much smaller print below it, "Clean, Carbon Neutral Coal." We found this to be more than a little misleading, considering there has yet to be a commercially viable method to securely sequester carbon available, or even a method that makes coal combustion carbon neutral. We did some sleuthing and found that Walker, which distributes Caterpillar mining equipment in southern West Virginia, has a whole media campaign touting the benefits of coal in the community. These billboards are part of Walker CEO Steve Walker's "Friends of Coal" campaign that apparently revolves around motivating his employees and others whose jobs depend on coal to help change the greater public opinion on the fuel, lest they lose their jobs. Scaring your employees to lobby on your behalf is an ignominious act in itself. But, when the nation's top climate scientist, James Hansen, is saying we need a moratorium on new coal plants that don't sequester carbon (and again, so far none of them can), you are just prolonging the inevitable. We realize Walker's campaign is cheaper than actually investing in carbon sequestration, but it's dirty in more ways than one. Comments (5)
  written by mark, September 14, 2008
Carbon neutral coal? That carbon was put into coal over 100,000 years ago. Suggesting that this makes it carbon neutral is simply "Republican-speak".
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The Scots-Irish of the Appalachians don't cotton well to, "Do as I say, not as I do."