Coal's heavy cost

This month, an accident in Utah entombed six miners. Three more died trying to rescue them. Four days after the first accident, three coal miners plunged down a shaft to their deaths in an Indiana mine. In China, which has the world's worst coal-mining fatality record, 181 miners are trapped in a flooded mine shaft with little hope of survival. More than 2,000 Chinese coal miners have died in accidents this year.

Then there are the respiratory conditions, including asthma, that are made worse by the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and fine particulates emitted in coal's combustion. Coal-burning power plants are also the principal man-made source of the nerve-system poison mercury. Its buildup in many species of fish has caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to advise women of child-bearing age to limit consumption of that otherwise healthful source of protein. Despite such warnings, women in the United States face a 10-to-15 percent risk of bearing children with mercury levels high enough to slow their mental development.

In Appalachia, mining by mountaintop removal is changing the face of the earth. Coal burning is changing the climate of the earth.

Of all the fossil fuels, coal emits the most carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. Forty percent of America's total of carbon dioxide comes from coal burning, mostly to produce electricity. Gasifying coal before burning it makes it possible to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions, but the process raises the cost of the electricity produced and has yet to be tested at full scale. In the meantime, utilities in the United States and elsewhere continue to build coal-fired plants without controls on carbon dioxide. Last year alone, China built more than 90 major coal-fired power plants.

Legislation passed by the U.S. House that would force utilities to start getting more of their power from renewable sources faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

The United States cannot wean itself from coal overnight. But as Congress and all Americans chart the nation's energy future, coal's environmental costs, especially its contribution to global warming, have to be factored into the equation. So do those accidents in Utah, Indiana, and China.