Coal Expert: Coal mining is a loser in practically every way

[txlibdem]

Excerpted from:
National Coal Expert: “Mining is a Loser” in Practically Every Way
Posted By mikec on April 27th, 2011
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1. Coal “mining is a loser economically, environmentally, and in terms of public health.” Hendryx has found that the heaviest coal-mining regions of Appalachia are worse off in just about every way compared to neighboring regions, similar in every other way except that they are below median in terms of coal production. The above-median coal-mining communities of Appalachia are also far worse off compared to the rest of the country. In making his calculations, Hendryx looked at a range of indicators, including health, education, poverty, environmental conditions, unemployment, and mortality rates. All told, Hendryx’s found that mountaintop removal mining’s economic cost to Appalachian communities totaled roughly $42 billion per year in lost health and lives.

2. The coal industry rhetoric that mining is important for jobs is simply not true. In fact, Hendryx’s research has found that Appalachian counties with the heaviest concentration of coal mining have the worst unemployment and the worst economic conditions in the region. According to Hendryx, the coal industry mantra that mining creates “jobs, jobs, jobs,” is a total myth – as is the false dichotomy between jobs and the environment that coal apologists suggest. As Hendryx bluntly puts it, “There still is a very strong presumption in the state that mining is important to jobs. I just shake my head that we still don’t understand that it’s not.”

3. Despite industry propaganda to the contrary, coal is neither cheap NOR abundant. In fact, “They are lying.” According to a recent Harvard study – one on which Professor Hendryx was a co-author – the full “lifecycle cost” of coal to the U.S. public is actually upwards of $500 billion a year. As for the “abundant” argument, Hendryx concludes that the industry is simply “lying” when it claims we have 200 years of coal left. To the contrary, Hendryx points out, US Geological Service and other analyses indicate that coal production is likely to peak in as few as 10 years, and might have already have peaked in Appalachia.

4. The concept that coal can be “clean” is “beyond absurd.” The idea that coal can be “clean,” whether on the combustion side or on the production side, and that we should invest billions of dollars in trying to achieve it is utterly ridiculous and a complete waste of money. According to Hendryx, “We need to get serious, stop wasting billions of dollars a year on the beyond absurd concept of clean coal.”

...from http://scalinggreen.com/2011/04/national-coal-expert-%E2%80%9Cmining-is-a-loser%E2%80%9D-in-practically-every-way/
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Peak coal in 10 years, a full life cycle cost of $500 Billion each year, coal removes jobs from a community instead of creating them as proponents claim.

Fellow DUers, we need to end this dirty coal industry and immediately stop subsidizing them with government tax breaks and zero enforcement of coal pollution. We need to start forcing the coal industry to pay us back for the true costs of its mining and use in terms of medical bills and deaths.

[dkf]

1. So if we stop coal mining where will the jobs come from.

And why would the fact that mining is there keep jobs away?

[FBaggins]

2. The jobs will come from the things that replace coal.

They just won't be jobs in those towns.

And why would the fact that mining is there keep jobs away?

Mining doesn't keep jobs away... it's just that many of those towns have little reason for existing except for the coal mines. So they jobs aren't "kept away" so much as they are simply not attracted in the first place.

[dkf]

3. So discontinue coal mining let these towns die and these people will have to move and will be better

off?

Is that the argument?

[FBaggins]

4. Close

Those towns will largely die (many are well on their way already) and those people would have to move or accept the same fate as every other small town with a single industry that died off.

Everyone else will be better off.

[txlibdem]

5. "Why would the fact that mining is there keep jobs away?"

How about toxic air, toxic water, toxic land, sick and dying residents. Add that to the fact that (not by coincidence) the coal companies put the worst mines in the counties with the lowest level of education and you have the reasons why coal is there and also the reasons why other industries don't want to touch the area.

Populations are declining where coal mining (especially mountain top removal) is conducted.

"Centralia is a borough and ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005,<1> 9 in 2007, and 10 in 2010, as a result of a mine fire burning beneath the borough since 1962."
...from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

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In the southern mountains company towns functioned to limit the growth of social freedom and self-determination and to heighten social anxieties and insecurities. They shaped the new, but not necessarily better, social environment of the Cumberland Plateau. The coal towns of Appalachia were new communities imposed on the indigenous population as an expedient means to bring about the degree of worker-control and urbanization necessary for industrial development, but they created a system of closed, artificial communities.

So, what happened as a result of coal mining? Well, a few people became fabulously wealthy, a larger number did not. The culture and environmental balance of an entire area was transformed by so-called progress which forced an exchange of the independence and tenacious self-sufficiency of a family farm, for dependence and subordination to the wage system and the coal town. It is not at all surprising that once the coal played out that the transient coal towns would be abandoned. After all, without the need for miners there was neither need for their housing nor the artificial communities.

...from http://www.netowne.com/historical/tennessee/index.htm
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And it isn't a problem exclusive to American coal mining.

Here's an article about coal mining in India titled Longevity has reduced drastically
by Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi
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The health hazards, degeneration of the health conditions of the people especially tribal women and children and water contamination is one of the most serious impacts of coal mining in Jharkhand.

...snip...

Today, the picture of Damodar River or Damuda, considered a sacred river by the local tribals, is quite like a sewage canal shrunken and filled with filth and rubbish, emanating obnoxious odours. This river once known as “River of Sorrow” for its seasonal ravages, has now turned into a “River of Agony” from the environmental point of view.

Due to extensive coal mining and vigorous growth of industries in this area water resources have been badly contaminated. The habitants have, however, been compromising by taking contaminated and sometimes polluted water, as there is no alternative source of safe drinking water. Thus, a sizeable populace suffers from water borne diseases.

...snip...

Study reveals that average longevity of women in East Parej coal field was found to be 45 and in most of the villages only one or two women had crossed the age of 60. In North Karanpura coal field average longevity of male is 50 years and that of female is 45 years.

...from http://network.earthday.net/profiles/blogs/coal-mining-destroying-the
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