Cycloptichorn wrote:Foxfyre wrote:How about you re-read what I just posted. It pretty well covers it.
Yeah, let us know when they get on top of catching all the uranium and sulfuric acid produced by coal smoke.
And whenever you're ready to address the fact that coal mining is environmentally destructive, go right ahead; you didn't do so in your last post.
Cycloptichorn
Well let's see.
In 1984 we spent a lovely summer and fall in West Virginia in the heart of coal mining country. Mile for mile, West Virginia might be the most beautiful state in the country, but if not, it certainly is right up there near the top, coal mining and all. While we were there, the miners cut out the side of a hill to extract the coal leaving a nice large flat spot where the hill had been. The farmer that owned the land was thrilled. Flat land in West Virginia is hard to come by and here he had a nice big flat spot that he could build a barn or use in any number of ways. But no, federal regulations required that the land be restored intact. No amount of appeal by the farmer helped. The coal mining company was obligated to put back all that dirt and rock and restore the land as much as possible as it had previously been.
We also lived in extreme Southeast Kansas for awhile a very few miles from the Missouri state line. This area is generally very poor for ranching or farming--all scrub trees, brambles, bushes, and thin top soil. When the strip coal miners came in, they dug out enormous trenches up to 50 or more feet deep and a football field or three long to extract the coal. But this was before the land had to be restored so they didn't refill the trenches that filled with ground water creating great bass, crappie, perch, and catfish ponds and generating a huge tourist attraction. The new habitat for the fish is so great the state has to do minimal restocking.
The coal mines in New Mexico have left few visible scars and some have become great tourist attractions.
And we haven't even talked about the tens of thousands of jobs provided to people, many of whom became unemployed and impoverished when the coal mines shut down. It was hard and dangerous work, but the miners made a good living doing it and I think most would say that hard and dangerous work is preferable to no work.
As with anything, we have learned to do many things better, more safely, more profitably, and more environmentally friendly than we used to do things, and that will also certainly be the case with coal. We can learn to use it in ways that are friendly to the planet. And there are enormous amounts of it to use.
Probably that claim will come during the Democratic convention the first week of September.
