Transformation:

moving beyond what we think we “know” to achieve what we need

Jason Hayes, M.E.Des., ACC Communications Director/Editor of American Coal

Over the past several months the ACC has been actively engaging several popular myths and misconceptions related to energy generation. On the Coalblog and our social media outlets, on the ACC website “Issues” page, in past issues of American Coal, in our Coal Q&A program, and in public presentations, we have questioned what is taken as conventional wisdom on energy. Along with those questions, we have provided answers where we could – balanced and factual information to respond to the broad media attention that these myths have received.

Among the myths are the ideas that natural gas can replace coal, that wind and solar can replace gas and coal, and that the construction of wind-based energy will necessarily reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We have also reviewed the higher costs of other energy choices, the rapid fluctuations in the prices of competing sources, the environmental impacts of other options, the inability of the ephemeral resources to provide baseload energy, and the lower reserves of gas vs. coal, among other issues. Each time we have shown how well coal fares in any honest and open discussion of full environmental and economic life cycles.

Despite these very favorable comparisons to other energy sources, the myths keep getting published. So many have not yet heard that while we continue to reap the benefits of our coal-fueled generation infrastructure – low cost, reliable, and increasingly clean energy – it is easy for well-funded special interests to toss around concepts like banning coal. It is easy to demand ever increasing levels of regulatory compliance from coal-fueled utilities and coal mines. It is easy to pretend that renewable energy could simply move in and take over where a mothballed generation station or stalled generation construction project had left off. Attacking coal as “dirty” was the easy, the default response, but the reality was that there was no serious, affordable, or even remotely workable alternatives.

Those attacks cost the anti-coal special interests very little in the short-term, but are able to bring substantial short-term benefits for them. Coal won’t be immediately shut down, and they know it. The impacts of their demands take years to be realized, as new construction and upgrades are stopped, old plants are considered for closure, and overall energy costs go up. In the short-term, those attacks are a simple means of gaining a headline, sewing up a few more “green” votes, scaring a few more “green” membership dollars out of concerned citizens, and winning over a few more “green” investment dollars. While electricity is reliably flowing and bills are kept low by coal-fueled power, special interests can afford to be carefree and reckless. Eventually, however, the bills mount and have to be paid.