Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Coal power isn't so wonderful
Albert Hoyer
Hoyer is a retired Presbyterian minister. He lives in Hardy.
My hog's cleaner than your hog! So what? Regardless how clean your hog or my hog is, the average housewife or husband would be loathe to allow either hog to take up residence in their living room, much less their kitchen, dining room or bedroom.
Yet, W. Douglas Blackburn Jr. in his recent commentary ("Coal will feed Virginia's power needs," March 20) tries to convince us to allow an even dirtier critter to be given residence in not only our front yard but our entire house.
He makes more than a few highly questionable claims about so-called clean-burning coal, which many experts say is decades away from being a scientifically and economically feasible reality.
Blackburn further decries the possibility of defacing "our Virginia coastline and countryside with towering wind turbines on a massive scale, when coal plants require much less space and are so much more dependable." But he makes no mention of the defacing some countrysides have already witnessed in ugly gouges and extreme degradation of the ecosystem brought about by mountaintop removal.
Fly over West Virginia and see for yourself. Weep at the wanton wounds inflicted on its once beautiful mountains and the burial of springs and streams that once nourished mountainsides and valleys. Such rape and degradation of creation's ecosphere can hardly be regarded as fulfilling God's charge to mankind "to be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it."
Blackburn's final masquerade may not be his fault, but The RoanokeTimes', in designating him as "a fourth-generation coal miner." Reading his arguments, it seems he is probably instead a coal mine operator.
However, the rosy picture of carbon footprintlessness that he alleges is possible. By his own admission it "will take international cooperation involving all countries that use large amounts of coal." That could take several decades, if not several generations to accomplish.
But maybe Blackburn's final insult to readers is his characterization of coal's "availability and relatively low cost." I guess he wouldn't dare mention the actual, real cost of burning coal in terms of atmospheric pollution and the worsening of global climate change.
Blackburn and the National Mining Association, which laughingly lauds itself as being so environmentally friendly, along with "all the countries that use large amounts of coal" need to bring about the unachieved goals of making coal burning and carbon sequestration environmentally safe and economically feasible before the public is asked to allow another coal-fired electric plant to be built.
Otherwise the public is being forced to allow Blackburn's hog to take up residence in its entire house. Doesn't it really make better sense to put the horse before the cart?
