Apr 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Jonathan Riskind The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio



Coal will keep fueling national and world energy needs for decades to come, but that doesn't have to mean a dirty-power future, coal-industry executives told a House committee today.

Many environmental advocates have contended that technology to trap greenhouse gases emitted by coal-fired power plants is years away and will come only at a tremendous cost.

But executives of Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and the Rio Tinto mining company, along with the head of the Ohio Coal Association, told lawmakers that clean-coal technology must be developed before steep penalties on emissions are put in place by federal regulators or climate-change legislation.

"We can provide a safer and cleaner path for coal in the future," said Gregory H. Boyce, chief executive officer of St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company. "Deployable (clean-coal) technology should be available before legislation. We need to take the time to get this right."

 The chair of the select committee on energy independence and global warming, Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., warned the executives that their industry needed to stop trying to kill off climate-change legislation. Markey also mentioned the tragedy at Massey Energy's coal mine in West Virginia, saying that "we owe it to the fallen miners and their families" to scrutinize mine safety rules.

"Today, many Americans are asking if coal is safe enough, if coal is healthy enough, if coal is innovative enough to be part of our shared clean-energy future," said Markey, a co-author of the House climate-change bill approved last year. "Last year, coal's share of America's electricity generation dropped from 49 percent to 44percent due to increased competition and decreased demand."

Still, Markey said the House climate-change bill contained $60 billion to help the coal industry develop technology to capture and store carbon emissions.

The Senate is working on its own climate-change legislation. Unlike the House bill it apparently won't contain a system of penalizing greenhouse-gas emissions that exceed certain levels and might contain more assistance for the coal industry and manufacturers.

"Politically, the country doesn't seem to be at the point where it is willing to say ... 'the heck with eliminating coal,'" Frank O'Donnell, president of the Washington-based Clean Air Watch, said afterward in a telephone interview.

The hearing also featured testy exchanges between several Democrats and Michael Carey, Ohio Coal Association president.

Markey and Carey clashed over whether there was enough coal industry aid in the House climate-change bill. Markey said the bill would provide $60 billion while Carey contended the figure was more like $10 billion and that the legislation would cost Ohio -- where 86 percent of electricity is produced by coal-fired power plants -- thousands of jobs.

Carey said the House bill and the Obama administration were "waging war on coal." Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., retorted that the impact of carbon emissions represented a war on future generations.

jriskind@dispatch.com

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