Hours. Joined here by Deputy Editor of environment and energy news for an overview of the coal industry in the u. S. Lets talk about the rock itself. What are the main types of coal that are mined in the United States . Well, you can say they go from really black to brownish. Youve got coal that was mined in eastern pennsylvania. Its still mined, but not as much. We dont use it as much. Then weve got what is mined the post, which is coal, and then youve got a type of coal on thats more brown, it has less energy, less ability to produce energy, but its still used, especially north dakota uses it a lot. Theres a plant in mississippi now that wants to use it, so it ranges. And they are different based on what part of the country youre mining. When you talk about the ranges of coal, talk about the ranges of mines. What kind of mines are there in the United States . Yeah, a lot of people assume all coal mines are for power plants. But there are a lot of mines and a big market, a big part of the u. S. Coal market is coal that is used to make iron and steel. And a lot of mines in the West Virginia area and the east and a lot of the exports that coal we send overseas are for that coal. So its not only the power plants and regulations that affect the market, but its also, you know, how much countries are developing and how much steel we need to make buildings. And were going to be talking about a lot of those regulations today. Manuel, our first guest this morning with ene news. We should note as we talk about this subject for the rest of todays program, special phone lines today. Toipt hear your stories and comments about the coal industry. Coal miners and family members of coal miners, phone number for you 2027484000. Otherwise lines are split up regionally. If youre in the mountain or pacific time zones, you can start calling in now. Manu manuel, we talked about the coal, the mines, lets talk about the power plants themselves. They are all over the country, but they are a lot near where the coal is. You have a lot of coal fire power plants, you know, western states, youve got, you know, southern states, so it really runs the gamut, but, for example, at the ohio valley area, thats an area thats been historically very coal heavy. You have a lot of mines nearby, but really its distributed around the country. Of course, and well talk about this more, but theres a lot of states that try to move away from coal and also because of the Market Conditions and regulations, a lot of states have been moving away. A lot of power plants have shifted from coal, so that map has shrunk where coal plants are. That map is from a great source for information, a lot of different maps and charts there. You talk about the Market Conditions. Lets talk about the price of coal. The cost of coal and how it relates to how its used by different power plants. The industry, their biggest selling point is that coal is cheap and its not very volatile in price. If you look at a chart of coal prices over time, youll see some spikes, but surprisingly little volatility. The cost it takes to produce energy out of that coal, and historically that price has been lower than other fuel sources. Whats happened is Natural Gas Prices have gone down dramatically because of the big fracking shale discoveries in pennsylvania and elsewhere. Therefore, now in for many utilities its cheaper to burn gas than coal, and the coal industry will tell you that over time gas prices have been more volatile than coal prices, but in recent years its been pretty steadily cheap and we see such an abundance of gas, thats led utilities to switch. Then theres regulations. You have the calculation, gas is cheaper, you have more regulations on coal, many utilities switch. This chart showing the annual share of total u. S. Electricity generation by source. This top black line at the top, thats coal from the 1950s. Its share as a percentage of u. S. Electricity generation in the 1950s, 50 , over 50 , started going down in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and we see here the orange line is the line for natural gas. You can see that starting to tick up at about the same time. So is natural gas the biggest competitor to coal right now . It is definitely the biggest competitor now. It has been when gas surpassed coal as a Power Production fuel in the u. S. , that was a big milestone, and at first it started surpassing it slightly and coal went back to being the dominant force and gas overtook it. The trend is for renewables, more renewables are coming in, and, you know, forecast as things stand, regulatorywise and marketwise is for gas and coal to retain large chunks of the market, but for renewables to come up and take more of the marketplace, and were seeing that develop faster than many people expected. You mentioned the Regulatory Regime a couple times. Is coal more heavily regulated than other potential Power Sources . Thats an interesting question. Coal is very heavily regulated. The Obama Administration moved to increase regulations on coal and were talking from mine to power plant to after the power plant, and in some ways developed regulations that encouraged more natural gas use. So, for example, the clean power plant that the Trump Administration is trying to reverse basically encouraged you to use power plants to use gas, whereas it made it more difficult for them to use coal. But natural gas is also quite heavily regulated, because when you burn it at the power plant, you still have the pollution controls, but coal being more polluting when its burned, then the regulations become more stringent. Deputy editor with environment and energy news, has covered the coal industry for how many years now . I would say about six years continuously. You can check out his work at eenews. Net. Here to answer your questions as we start this discussion today on the coal industry. Again, lines for coal miners and family members, we want to hear your stories. Otherwise eastern and central United States call us. Mountain and pacific regions, well start in new york city with michael. Good morning, youre on the washington journal. Caller hi, good morning. Thank you, first of all, for dedicating some time to this issue. I think our Natural Resources and Energy Situation is extremely important nowadays. I have a comment and a question. First, my comment is, in listening to government and also private organizations talk about how coal is used and how the president is rolling back obama regulations on coal, it seems like we are trying to bring back horse and buggy technology to the auto industry, and i dont understand why coal, which seems like it is such a dated technology, or a dated source, is still something that is debated and we are not putting enough emphasis or the industry is not putting enough emphasis on more refined and technologically advanced sources. Go ahead with your question. Caller my question was going to say, is the industry in that much of a power role in the American Energy field where they are retarding development for business . Because i heard you say coal is relatively inexpensive. Is the industry really Holding Back Development so much so for their profit line that they are ignoring new technology . Michael, got your question. Manuel . Thats an interesting question, because, you know, to the first part of the question and comment, a lot of people in the coal industry would say its a misconception that its a horse and buggy technology, because, you know, until very recently when we saw the numbers go down, coal was the dominant source of Power Production and, you know, when we had the Energy Shocks decades ago, the u. S. Government promoted the use of coal because they saw it as such an abundant fuel, and in the decade since, especially since passage of tougher environmental rules for burning coal, there have been a lot of technological advances in how that coal is burned. You have a lot more efficient power plants, which can burn less coal cleanly to produce the same amount of electricity. At the same time, you know, the coal industry has been very active in lobbying against environmental regulations, against climate regulations. They tend not to be very friendly to government subsidies for renewable power. At the same time, they are fighting for the government to focus on developing technologies to burn coal even more cleaner and trap the Green House Gas emissions, and the industry will tell you if you let the market decide rather than adding regulations, then, you know, win or lose based on the market, then they are win with that, thats what they say, but what they dont want is for the government to kind of tip the scales in favor of other fuels when theirs is viable and theres a potential for improvement. So you touched on this. When people talk about clean Coal Technology, what part of the process are they referring to . Clean Coal Technology is a myriad of technologies. Its from, you know, power plants that are dramatically more efficient, that, you know, can turn coal into gas before that gas is burned, but, you know, in washington policy circles, when you speak of clean Coal Technology, basically what youre talking about is carbon capture, sequestration, and utilization. And that technology is basically you burn coal at the power plant, you trap the carbon emissions, and then you either store them underground or you use them to enhance Old Oil Wells or to even produce fertilizer. And thats something that the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration and the industry have been working to promote. The problem is that its extremely expensive and many, especially in the recent market, you have utilities, you know, coal advocates telling ewe tillies invest more in these technologies and Utility Companies say it costs this much to switch to natural gas and lower my emissions, why should i switch to this . Silver spring, maryland, go ahead. Caller yeah, good morning. Im loving this show right now. I have a question. During the campaign, trump, he said he promised that he was going to bring back the coal mining jobs, and i wanted to know if actually government can bring back those jobs in 2017 when we have other cheaper. Can the government my question, can the government bring back those kinds of jobs and force us to use something more expensive than we have now . Thats my question. Thats a question thats been in the news a lot. Even during the campaign when President Trump, thencandidate trump, was saying he was going to bring back coal jobs, even the most ardent coal supporters told him in his ear, you know, you shouldnt make such promises, because most independent analysts and even people in the coal industry itself will tell you things will not go back to the way they used to be. Right now a lot of Coal Mining Companies are reporting a surge, you know, trump is now president , you know, we have people coming in that werent working, we have more production. A lot of that bump was expected, because we hit a really strong bottom in recent years, so there was a bump expected anyways, and, you know, in reality the Trump Administration has moved to try to roll back some regulations that were costly on the coal industry, so we might see some effect from that, but when it comes to, like, big job gains, even coal boosters will agree that they are not going to return to where they used to be. Weve lost tens of thousands of coal mining jobs in recent years. I mean, youre talking about the regulations they are trying to help. Have they promised anything about when people would see that bump if it does happen . Not really. I havent heard any date saying its going to come at this point. You know, they are moving to, for example, undo the clean power plan, which is president obamas Green House Gas limits on power plants. At the same time, that rule was already stayed by the court, so it wasnt really in effect. Theres another rule, the stream protection rule, that many coal miners thought would hurt the bottom line. Some coal miners were saying it would decimate the industry. That rule never really had a chance to go into effect before congress and President Trump rescinded it. Theres been an increased campaign to increase safety regulations, you know, those have pretty much gone into effect and have been going into effect for years, so its really hard to tell how much these regulations are going to make a difference. Yeah, for morale and investment knowing the governments not going to regulate you much will make a difference, but on the ground regulatorily remains to be seen. A chart from the bureau of labor statistics information that came out last friday, coal jobs in the First Quarter of 2017, 72,600 jobs in the United States. Down from the First Quarter of 2016 from 78,900 jobs in the United States. Were going to be talking about those jobs, about the people in the industry. I want to hear from coal miners and their families, as well, special line for you. 2027483000. T. Is up next from maryland. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to make three quick comments. The first one is, one thing i realize is, a lot of the ceos that actually control the coal plants, they actually dont live in the area, they dont drink from the same water that all of this waste go into. Its actually very interesting that nobody actually brings up that fact. Thats my first comment. The second comment, ive been hearing so much about the coal is cheap and all that. The limits of Congress Passed a bill right now that pledged 3 billion for the health care of our coal miners. Now, i dont know about every other people that is listening, but im really, really sure the government is not putting aside money to take care of my medical needs and for them to have to do this means, again, the Coal Companies are not are not taking the lead on caring for the sick from this really, really dangerous job. And my last comment is, you know, i mentioned this before, we need speakers that can really sometimes counter some of this information and also we also need some sort of fact check. Its very easy to get people uninformed about the effects to the environment about the solution and i can speak as a chemist, nobody talks about these things. T. , t. , stick around today, because were going to have a lot of different guests on this topic, including a ceo of a coal company who lives in the area, Robert Murray of Murray Energy is coming on at 8 00, the local congressman of the 6th district of ohio lives in coal country there. Hell be joining us about 8 30 this morning. 9 00, vivian stockman, vice director of the ohio valley varmtal coalition will join us, and then a fifth generation coal miner will be with us live. Nick mullens is his name. Thats happening at 9 30 this morning. Stick around, you might be interested in all of those guests. Manuel, i wanted you to pick up on the Miners Health care bill that was passed by congress. Thats a good lineup. First i want to address the ceo Water Concern that you brought up and, indeed, environmentalists point that out a lot and say even the ceos who live in the area tend to live removed from where they say the pollution is. Also when they come to capitol hill to testify, they bring water that is tainted and say this water has been tainted by the mining process and show lawmakers, but it doesnt seem to make a difference in the political discussion. Pro mining and the people who are for more regulation will keep on without belief. Doesnt seem to make that much of a difference. When it comes to the minor health care, what happened there, support these two benefit plans. They decided to start off with health care because they thought doing pension and health care was too much of a lift. Many republicans were skeptical of doing both, so then they addressed the health care issue. Supporters of this will tell you there was a promise made to coal miners and to the union for the government to backstop their pensions and that goes back to when president truman took over the coal mines and the negotiations. There was a promise to do this, since then the federal government has stepped in in other occasions to backstop those union benefits, including a couple decades ago to legislation having to do with mine reclamation. They extended a program for helping reclaim abandoned mines and made a formula for the United Mine Workers to get a cut of that, a cut of the interest dollars. But then that ended up not being enough, especially with the downturn in the markets, so then congress had to step in again. Theres been a big discussion as to should congress have done this, was there really a promise to the miners. In the end miners persisted for several years. Only recently has it really hit the news and the miners got their Health Benefits protected. The pensions, thats still pending. A couple minutes left with manuel, then well be going out to ohio for the for several interviews today on a lot of these topics on the coal industry and the impacts of coal. Powe hatten point, loading facility there, key transfer point from one of the mines, century mine in ohio, to power plants up and down the ohio river. This is where the coal comes into and is shipped to those power plants. One of the individuals who works there is j. D. Holiday, the harbor manager and long time boat captain there. I want to show our viewers an interview with him on a recent visit in which he describes what actually happens each day at the transloading facility there. What we have here is we have a transloading facility that brings coal by train down to the harbor. We offload the trains and load it on to barges. One of the things we have realized years ago is barge transportation, water transportation, is the most efficient way to ship product no matter what product it would be. And i can put it in perspective for you, if you would like. So, we load a barge down here in about 40 minutes. It takes about 40 minutes to load one barge, and thats with 1,700 tons of coal that goes into one barge. When the barges leave our harbor, theres usually 15 of them that tie together, wired together, and one boat will pick those up. And to go further into perspective, it would take about 850 coal trucks to, you know, come up with that much coal to deliver at one time. What we can do with these barges and one boat. How many barges do you have here and how many spots do they deliver to up and down the ohio river . Barges vary from day to day. Sometimes we can have up to, you know, 60, 70 barges to load, you know, in our harbor in a time. The farthest power plant is probably inside of 400 miles from here, which would take the coal probably two or three days to get there by water. But still, its a whole lot quicker than it would be if you were trying to use the roads to get it there. How much coal comes through powhatten point on a daily basis . On a daily basis, 25,000 to 30,000 tons of coal will come by powhatten on a daily basis. We have a dozer operator that we use on our reclaimed pile up there, and we have a boat crew, which consists of a captain and a deck hand. The foreman thats on duty. Hes also the control room operator, and then our maintenance people. So it doesnt take a lot of people to do what we do for the amount of coal that we ship now. And thats where well be for most of the rest of todays program, but i want to get in one or two more calls with manuel of Environment Energy news here at our desk here in washington, d. C. Chris is in venice, florida, has been waiting on the line for coal miners and family members. Chris, good morning. Caller good morning. Can you hear me . Yes, maam, go ahead. Caller okay. We were a coal mine family for 30 years. My husband was a superintendent of the long wall, and he was devoted to the people in the area of southeastern ohio. We he was just like a doctor. If that long wall went down for two hours, day or night, he got up out of the bed and he went back out. Rain, snow, indifferent. And i was a mother of two children like i was almost like a coal mine widow with my children, because he was so devoted. And i said one time, i said, jim, why do you do this . He said, there are so many families that this industry, this southern ohio coal supports, that he said, chris, when i leave my family to go get that long wall back up so we can stay in production, he said, i am an advocate for hundreds of families in this area. Now since, that long wall and that coal mine is shut down, and when i went back up a few months ago to that area, it is poverty. It is welfare. So when people say the coal mine industry, i dont want them ever to forget that these people are trying to put their kids through college, which we did two children. These people are trying to have the life that people do to just flip on a switch in oregon, in california, so im an advocate for the coal mines, because theres families. Its not the industry. Its families. Thanks for the call from florida this morning. About a minute left. What did you take from the call . First i want to expound on what a long wall is. She kept talking about the long wall. Basically, its an enormous machine underground that basically pushes against the wall of a coal seam and sheers the coal off and puts it in conveyer belts. Its impressive. Having been next to a long waller, its impressive. To the broader point, a lot of people talk about how coal jobs in recent years were never all that abundant in the grand scheme of things around the country and now even in coalproducing states they are just a fraction of them, so why do we worry so much about the coal industry, and what the caller kind of colored for us was that for this, a lot of this is in peoples blood. Its part of their culture, its part of their heritage, its got a long history. So its hard for a lot of people to say, okay, lets move on. Especially when for so many decades it has provided a good living. Miners do make pretty good money, especially for places that are away from these big metro areas, so thats something to keep in mind and debate. Manuel, Deputy Editor environment and energy news, always appreciate your time. Thank you. And weve been showing you images this morning from the powhatten point transloading center on the ohio river. Just across the river there you can see in that image is the Mitchell Power Plant owned by American Electric power, as well as cammer station plant. Jeff lafleur is Senior Vice President of commercial operations at American Electric power, which owns those plants. He joins us now from powhatten point. Good morning, sir. Good morning, john. I want to ask you how many power plants does American Electric power operate and how many customers does it provide electricity for . John, we serve 5. 4 million customers across our 11state area. The number of plants is getting to be a little more difficult to nail down with the Technology Change now that were investing in Wind Turbines and solar plants, but we our capacity, our generating capacity is about
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.