Coal Companies Care About Miners, Says WVCA President
By Chris Hamilton, President, West Virginia Coal Association
Chris Hamilton
Phil Kabler’s recent column under the headline “'Friends of Coal' aren’t friends of miners,” is an affront to every miner, mine supervisor and mine operator, as well as the tens of thousands of West Virginians who show up at a mine site every day to contribute to the production, construction, preparation or transportation phases of mining.
Its sweeping portrayal of the industry disregards the commitment, professionalism and personal responsibility demonstrated daily by the people who make West Virginia mining possible.
Providing for worker safety and maintaining a healthy, safe mine environment are daily, nonnegotiable priorities -- paramount to every other goal or objective. Mine safety is also a shared responsibility among every person at the mine level, from management and supervisors to miners and contractors. West Virginia’s mining industry proudly stands behind its mine safety performance record, which reflects the deployment of state-of-the-art mine safety and extractive technologies, advanced training programs, effective communications and teamwork.
No one in the coal industry dismisses the tragedy of mine accidents, the reality of occupational disease or the importance of rigorous enforcement. West Virginia’s coal families have experienced those losses firsthand. Our miners are not abstractions to the people who operate, manage and work alongside them. They are our co-workers, neighbors, friends and family members. Their safety is not merely a regulatory obligation; it is the foundation of every responsible mining operation.
The reality of mine safety
The suggestion that the industry’s goal is to produce coal “as cheaply as possible” -- even by bending or breaking health, safety and environmental rules -- ignores the reality of modern mining and the record of the people who work in it. Today’s coal operations invest heavily in ventilation, dust monitoring, personal protective equipment, training, engineering controls, communications systems, rescue preparedness and other safety measures. Operators must comply with extensive federal and state requirements, undergo regular inspections and work under a system in which violations carry serious consequences.
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Report: Dozens of Suspected ‘Directed Energy Attacks’ Carried Out Inside the United States
Award-winning journalist Catherine Herridge shared shocking details from an exclusive report on Thursday about an investigation into “energy attacks” that may have taken place on American soil.
Herridge appeared on NewsNation to share what she’d learned, saying, “According to my national security contacts, I understand multiple incidents of suspected directed energy attacks were reported in 2021 involving U.S. government personnel who were investigating directed energy weapon technology and trying to reverse-engineer a device.”
“These debilitating brain injuries affecting diplomats, spies, military operatives, and even civilians are known as Havana Syndrome, after a cluster of cases were identified in Cuba a decade ago,” she continued.
“I understand that more than two dozen suspected incidents had been reported inside the U.S., including a significant number of cases at an off-site U.S. government intelligence research facility in northern Virginia.”
A Space Force veteran sat down with Herridge and told her he was “targeted in his own home outside Washington, D.C.”
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Battle of Blair Mountain Marks 105th Anniversary
Since Aug. 25, the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum has been recounting day by day on social media the events of the largest labor uprising in United States history.
The miners who took up arms in 1921 to fight against injustice both down in the mines and in the coal company’s camps were ultimately unsuccessful when they laid down their guns at the arrival of federal troops on Sept. 4.
But Taylor Hankins, the museum’s communications director, said the Battle of Blair Mountain remains an important story of solidarity.
This archival image from the West Virginia & Regional History Center shows armed miners in Kanawha coal fields in 1921. The armed miners laid down their guns at the arrival of federal troops on Sept. 4.
“These miners, these men, were tried to be divided and pitted against one another by the coal companies, but they all came together because they had this common binder of class,” she said. “I think that is a powerful story in itself, especially when it comes to the national image of what West Virginia is. I think a lot of people don’t expect that kind of class solidarity against all other odds such as nationality and race and things like that.”
Hankins said the armed uprising alone is not what exemplifies the true spirit of Appalachia, but more so how hard miners tried to find other solutions through striking and pleading their case directly to Gov. Ephraim Morgan. But she said that then, as now, national perception of the Appalachian laborers was less than favorable.
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What is the Future For This Large Illinois Coal-Fired Power Plant?
In the state of Illinois, coal-fired power plants are being phased out due to a provision in the landmark Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that requires those facilities be closed by 2045.
This means that the days of coal-fired power plants being a primary source of electricity are numbered.
One of those power plants is the Prairie State Energy Campus in Marissa, 45 miles southeast of St. Louis. It is of nine coal-fired power plants still in operation in Illinois.
An Overview of Prairie State
Prairie State is a 1,600-megawatt power plant attached to an underground coal mine, built to meet stringent environmental standards and be highly efficient, according to Prairie State spokesperson Alyssa Harre.
"As the only supercritical coal plant in Illinois, Prairie State is more efficient than every other coal plant in the state, effectively producing more electricity per ton of coal — meaning that Prairie State gets better 'gas mileage' than any other coal plant in the state," Harre said.
Prairie State serves 2.5 million people across Illinois and several other Midwestern states.
Harre said due to the facility's design and on-site storage of fuel, the company could keep the power grid resilient and also provide a backstop in case generation becomes more intermittent. She also said that a facility like Prairie State could become all the more important if Illinois sees an energy shortfall, something that a study last year by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the Illinois Power Agency and the Illinois Commerce Commission said could happen within a few years.
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The Age of Electricity Is Becoming the Age of Energy Backlash
International Energy Agency Director Fatih Birol has labeled the coming decades “the Age of Electricity.” Global electricity demand is growing at twice the rate of total energy demand. Whether it’s the emergence and rapid adoption of air conditioning, electric vehicles or data centers, surging electricity demand is upending both energy policy and politics.
As Politico’s Ben Storrow observed, “Oil is still king of global energy markets, and politics. But a shift is underway.” That shift is about more than ballooning demand. It is also about voters’ growing sensitivity to electricity prices.
In the United States, data centers and rapidly rising power bills have pushed electricity to the center of the political debate. Since February 2020, average electricity prices have increased 40% nationwide. In some areas, the rise has been far steeper. Here in Washington, D.C., prices have jumped 93% in just half a decade.
Europe faces a similar backlash. There, frustration is directed at a bungled energy transition that has delivered greater penetration of wind and solar at exorbitant costs and created a crippling dependence on imported natural gas.
The circumstances across the Atlantic may appear different, but they share a costly commonality: the rush to push coal off the grid.
America’s Capacity Crisis Comes Home to Roost
In the United States, concerns about rising prices and the enormous electricity needs of data centers ultimately come back to a shortage of generating capacity—a shortage created by years of policy mistakes.
Cheap natural gas, renewable mandates and a federal regulatory onslaught drove half the nation’s coal capacity off the grid since 2011. Another 50 gigawatts of coal capacity are now at risk of closure over the next five years.
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