on a coal plant," Engelhardt assured the crowd. 

 "Prairie State is an important step forward in terms 

 of the cleanliness of coal plants, and ultimately will 

 help us get to near-zero emissions from coal plants." 



A few local politicians chimed in, the band struck 

 up the Hornets' fight song, and there was a lot of clap- 

 ping and backslapping. Even the kids in the bleach- 

 ers, most of them born long after the coal industry 

 had died in the region, were on their feet cheering. 

 "Coalis U.S.A.!" someone shouted. "Coal is U.S.A.!" 



For Big Coal — the alliance of coal mining com- 

 panies, utilities, railroads, and lobbying groups 

 that make coal such a powerful political and eco- 

 nomic force in America — the slogan "Opportunity 

 Returns" is a rather coy understatement. "Boom" 

 is more like it: the world is in the midst of an un- 

 precedented love affair with coal. According to the 

 International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy 

 equivalent of some 1,350 thousand-megawatt coal- 

 fired power plants will be built by 2030. Forty per- 



cent of them will be in China, where coal is fueling 

 a stunning economic transformation. India will add 

 another 10 percent or so, and most of the remain- 

 ing half will be added in the West. In the United 

 States, the IEA predicts, about a third of the new 

 electric-generating capacity built by 2025 will be 

 coal-fired. Besides Peabody's Prairie State plant, 

 more than 120 new coal plants are now in the works 

 throughout the nation. 



Many people think coal in the U.S. went the way 

 of top hats and corsets. In fact, the U.S. depends more 

 on coal today than ever before. Americans consume, 

 on average, about twenty pounds ot it a day. Rough- 

 ly half the nation's electricity comes from coal — more 

 than a billion tons of it a year. In fact, electric-pow- 

 er generation is one of the largest and most capital- 

 intensive industries in the country, with revenues of 

 more than $260 billion in 2004 alone. Americans 

 may not like to admit it, but the nation's shiny white 

 lPod economy is propped up by dirty black rocks. 



Yet coal harbors some profound character flaws, and 

 all nations — but particularly the U.S. and China — 

 ought to consider them carefully before transforming 

 their whirlwind infatuation with the economics of en- 

 ergy from coal into a long-term commitment. First, 

 coal can be quite dangerous to acquire. For proof, one 

 need look no further back than this past January, when 

 twelve men died after an explosion at West Virginia's 

 Sago Mine, or to later that month, when two more 

 miners died in a fire in West Virginia's Alma Mine. A 

 few weeks later, sixty-five miners were trapped and 

 killed after an explosion at a Mexican mine. China's 

 coal mines are even more notorious death traps: some 

 6,000 workers are killed there each year. 



Furthermore, coal damages the environment and 

 public health. Mining it levels mountains and disrupts 

 ecosystems. Burning it yields toxic emissions that cause 

 acid rain, polluted lakes and rivers, and poor air qual- 

 ity. Perhaps most important, burning it emits far more 

 carbon dioxide (C0 2 ) per unit of usable energy out- 

 put than any other energy source. Carbon dioxide, of 



Conveyor belt lifts coal out of Peabody Energy's Gateway 

 Mine in southern Illinois. Coal and coal mining have 

 recently enjoyed a tremendous resurgence, 

 despite the negative effects of coal-fired 

 power plants on global climate. 



May 2006 NA1UKAI HISTORY 37 



