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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Verbatim: A Coal CEO Addresses Global Warming Following are highlights from a speech about global warming and the coal industry delivered by Robert E. Murray, chairman, president and CEO of Cleveland-based Murray Energy Corp. to the New York Coal Trade Association in New York City last Friday. Most participants in the coal industry are very threatened and troubled by the so-called "global warming," or carbon emission constraint, measures that have been introduced into the Congress that will ration the use of coal, with much worse adverse consequences to our American citizens than those that I have already experienced in my lifetime as a result of enactment of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment legislation. You see, so-called "global warming" is a human issue to me, not just an environmental one. The unfolding debate over atmospheric warming in the Congress, the news media, and by the pundits has been skewed and totally one-sided, in that they have been preoccupied with possible, speculative environmental disasters of climate change. However, few are giving adequate attention to the destruction that we will definitely see for American working people from all of the climate change proposals that have been introduced in the House and Senate to date. The Democratic takeover of Congress has, unfortunately, made "global warming" a live issue once again, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vows to have a global warming bill on the House floor before the Fourth of July (although recently she backtracked somewhat by explaining that it would not necessarily be a comprehensive cap-and-trade bill). The House has created a select committee on global warming to hold hearings around the country and build public support for energy rationing legislation. In the Senate, Barbara Boxer, Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has created two subcommittees on global warming. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee under Chairman Jeff Bingaman has also embarked on an active hearing schedule. Today low-cost electricity is a staple of life for all Americans, and 52% of this electricity is generated from coal. Further, coal-fired electricity is by far the lowest cost — about one-fourth to one-third of the cost of natural gas-fired electricity. Moreover, the Energy Information Agency states that our electricity consumption in America will rise 41% between now and 2030. It is projected that, over the next 20 years or so, coal must be counted on to generate 57% of America's electricity, which cannot be replaced by any other form of generation — not natural gas, nuclear, or water, and certainly not renewables. This coal growth is impossible with a cap-and-trade scheme on power plant emissions. Indeed, any cap-and-trade plan kills the coal industry. No amount of new technology — IGCC plus carbon capture and storage — can save it. The recent study by MIT on "The Future of Coal" makes this conclusion clear. The MIT study shows that IGCC is still a long way from being commercially viable and will raise costs considerably. Carbon capture and storage would also raise costs significantly, and this approach also faces huge political and legal obstacles. These include legal liability and monitoring and property rights issues. Momentum is undoubtedly building for a cap-and-trade scheme in the United States, and, unfortunately, many in the industry are helping to build this momentum because they do not seem to understand what is at stake. Look at what is happening in the res t of the world. The U. S. and Canada have both had 55%-60% economic growth since 1990. Yet Canadian emissions are up 30%, while ours are up only 20%. Japan has had less than half the economic growth and no population growth, but their emissions are up 15%. In the European Union, the 1990 baseline conceals what is happening because the re-unification of Germany led to the closing of East Germany's massive steel mills, and Great Britain switched from high-priced coal to cheap North Sea gas to produce electricity. This led to a huge decline in aggregate EU emissions in the early 1990s. How then will the Kyoto participants be able to negotiate a new round of emissions reductions after 2012? They will not be able to do so, unless the United States reverses course and enacts its own energy rationing system. While we have been losing high-paying manufacturing jobs in America to foreign countries, can you imagine the havoc that will be wrought on our country as a result of curbing coal's use, or destroying its potential as a vital domestic fuel, which every single piece of legislation introduced in the Congress to date does, by slapping mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions and United States coal utilization? Draconian legislation, such as the McCain/Lieberman or Bingaman/Specter bills, would thoughtlessly impose arbitrary caps on the use of coal, despite the destructive implications to our economy. Yes, all of the so-called "global warming" bills introduced to date will throw the prospects for our citizens and our economy in a spiraling reverse. It is a human issue to me, as I know by name many of the thousands of persons whose lives will be destroyed from the current deceitful, hysterical, out of control, rampage perpetrated by fearmongers in our society and some legislators to mandate carbon dioxide emission limits. While some want us to believe that the science behind so-called "global warming" is certain, to the contrary, the actual environmental risk associated with carbon emissions is highly speculative. It is a fact, however, that every proposal introduced to date will provide a far more certain risk that carbon dioxide emission limits will destroy coal and manufacturing dependent communities and inflict great hardships on America's families. Further, carbon capture, transfer, and sequestration technologies have not been commercially developed, and the needed investment in them must not be thwarted by discussions of "global warming" legislation. Also, I am a skeptic relative to our country's commitment to gasification, liquification or other technologies for the use of coal in processes other than pulverized coal combustion. I worked on the Great Plains Coal Gasification project in North Dakota, the only one in the western hemisphere, from 1968 to 1983, and there has not been another one built in the ensuing 40 years. Again, carbon emission legislation must not thwart the needed investment in coal utilization technologies. Some wealthy elitists in our Country, who cannot tell fact from fiction, can afford an Olympian detachment from the impacts of draconian climate change policy. For them, the jobs and dreams destroyed as a result will be nothing more than statistics and the cares of other people. These consequences are abstractions to them, but they are not to me, as I can name many of the thousands of the American citizens whose lives will be destroyed by these elitists' ill-conceived "global goofiness" campaigns. Also, there are a number of companies that are promoting constraints on coal use to achieve greater profits and/or competitive advantages, which transparent motivations are not in the best interests of Americans. These include Excelon, Entergy, British Petroleum, Shell Oil, Caterpillar, Alcoa, DuPont, General Electric and Merrill Lynch. These companies support some sort of cap-and-trade scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some of them hope to make short-term profits by claiming tens of billions of dollars of credits for actions already taken or that will be taken regardless (such as replacing a 60-year-old coal-fired power plant). Others calculate that they will be hurt less by an emissions cap than their competitors. Still others have decided that a cap is inevitable and that they need to get a seat at the table now so that they can negotiate the best deal possible for themselves. These companies in my view are putting short-term profits ahead of the interests of their workers and the American economy. I think that a cap-and-trade system is inevitable only if those who should know better decide that it is inevitable and agree to surrender. Emissions limits would be disastrous for the coal industry in particular and for the economy in general. You see, I have seen the effect of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the drastic reductions in coal production, and wrenching impact on hundreds of communities as a result of that legislation. In Ohio alone, from 1990 to 2005, about 118 mines were shut down, costing more than 36,000 primary and secondary jobs. These impacted areas have spent years recovering, and some never will. Families broke up, many lost homes, some were impoverished, because of legislation that the environmentalists call a "success." Again, I did not learn of this havoc from computer models. I lived it and saw it firsthand. Now, we are glibly discussing mandatory carbon emission reductions, which will have far more sweeping and far deeper reductions in coal production, and will wreak much greater economic carnage and reductions in the quality of life and standard of living of many Americans, than the Clean Air Act Amendments. But, the destruction from limiting coal use will not stop there. Natural gas costs will rise, further damaging the agricultural and chemical industries, and the loss of American manufacturing jobs, which depend on low-cost electricity, will be accelerated. Also, the adverse impacts on the economy's jobs and quality of life will not be equal throughout the country. Rather, the states that depend on coal-fired electricity will be damaged the greatest. Every state in our country has a "target" on its back from proposed "global warming" legislation, except those on the West Coast and in New England, where much of the hysteria for draconian legislation is originating. What will the worldwide environmental gain be from the pain that will be suffered on millions of American citizens? The answer is, very little. Since 1990, U. S. greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 18%, while China's have increased by 77%. China's emissions will surpass ours this year. By the middle of the century, China and India will emit twice as much carbon as the United States and the European Union, combined. The G-77 group of developing countries, led by China, which is building about 50 new coal-fired power plants, again reiterated this winter that they will not agree to mandatory carbon emission constraints in a second Kyoto round after 2012, nor have they actually ever reduced any emissions to date. All America will be doing is exporting more of our jobs to these countries, and widespread hardship will be reeked on thousands of American families as a result of further industrial contraction in our Country. The so-called Kyoto Treaty commitments by other countries have been a farce. European Union nations, with no population growth, have increased their emissions faster than the United States, which has had 1% population growth. Only two of the signatories thereto have achieved their emission- reduction commitments. The distinguished Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric science at MIT, believes that much of the impetus for mandatory CO2 reduction legislation is coming for academic and governmental persons who depend on large monetary grants to operate, as well as politicians looking for an issue. Mr. Lindzen states: "Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates, and policy makers." Climate change science is uncertain, and carbon dioxide capture technology has not been proven on a commercial scale. The Congress must not be stampeded into preempting thorough climate research and the development of carbon capture, transfer, and sequestration technologies with emotionally developed or politically motivated legislation in the current hysterical rampage to enact carbon dioxide emission limitation mandates. We must oppose any energy-rationing legislation, whether it is a cap-and-trade or a straight tax on carbon energy. Much is at stake here. If mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions are ever enacted, it will be very difficult to dispose of them, even if it becomes clear that the rest of the world is not even trying to do so. And with the way our regulatory agencies work, the cap will only be set lower and lower as the years go by. We cannot remain the world's greatest economic power by starving ourselves of energy. Our discussion of so-called "global warming" legislation brings us to the coal regulatory bureaucracies, both Federal and state. Perhaps the most out-of-control bureaucracy in our country today is the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), of which Ms. Kathleen A. McGinty is the secretary. You will recall that Ms. McGinty, a radical environmentalist, helped Albert Gore author with his book, "Earth in the Balance," and was President Bill Clinton's chairman of the Council of Environmental Quality. She was brought to the state by the election of Ed Rendell as governor. Ms. McGinty's actions, and those of her DEP, have illegally closed the High Quality Mine of Maple Creek Mining, Inc. ("Maple Creek"), which provided 500 direct and, according to The Pennsylvania University, up to 5,500 indirect jobs. Eventually Maple Creek will be able to appeal this matter to a fair legal forum from the State's Environmental Hearing Board, which is stacked with former DEP lawyers. At that time, our Companies will achieve a major takings claim from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This will keep me alive for the years that it will be required, but what about the 6,000 jobs that Ms. McGinty has destroyed? Some random comments regarding environmental issues facing the coal industry are: • The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed very biased mercury regulations favoring Powder River Basin sub-bituminous and lignite coals over bituminous coal. Just as the government altered the markets against high sulfur coal in 1990 with the Clean Air Act Amendments, when eastern bituminous coal was attacked over sulfur, all bituminous coal is being attacked again over mercury. The industry, including Murray Energy, has a lawsuit against the EPA relative to this disparity, which has come from the lobbying of western railroads and coal producers and others, just as in 1990, although eastern producers of less than 2.5 pound per million Btu coal weighed in then, also. • I will only waste a few words relative to Albert Gore, the shaman of global goofiness and doom and gloom. He has portrayed those of us in coal as bad guys in a cheap "good guys / bad guys" scenario, which has always been his tactic. Mr. Gore has never been able to determine the difference between science and science fiction. He is more dangerous than his "global warming." • California legislators have proposed a GHG standard for purchased power that it meet a standard requiring that emissions can be no more than from a combined-cycle natural gas plant. This could doom 30 coal-fired plants. Now the U. S. House and Senate leaders from California want to spread the nonsensical damage that will result across our entire country. • Trial lawyers are getting desperate. They have now filed class action lawsuits against many companies, including Murray Energy, claiming that hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming and our company. Some comments regarding coal demand and pricing are: • Coal prices rose an average of 13% in 2005. • Coal prices have declined this year, but it appears that floor prices have been achieved based on the cost of production in many regions of the country. • Coal inventories are at extremely high levels. We see no coal price rebound in the current year and into 2008. • The economic point of switching from coal to natural gas is in the rage of $4 to $4.75 per million Btu. Gas is well above this threshold. • The average current capacity factor of the nation's power plants is 73%, and a very low number of our plants operate at above 80%. Thus, there is much opportunity for coal from just increasing the capacity factors of existing plants. A 70% capacity factor increased to 80% will yield another 90 million annual tons of market for our industry. • There is currently 310 gigawatts of coal fired capacity in America. It is projected that 20 gigawatts will be added by 2010, accounting for 65 million tons of coal demand. Estimates for the longer term are 90 million additional gigawatts, accounting for nearly 300 million tons in demand. • World electricity use is projected to increase from 14,781 billion kilowatts in 2003 to 30,116 billion kilowatts in 2030. • World coal consumption is projected to increase at an annual rate of 3% to 5% from 5.44 billion tons annually in 2003 to 7.72 billions tons in 2015. It is projected to increase at 2% annually thereafter to 10.56 billion tons in 2030. In view of these projected figures, my faith in the ingenuity of mankind, and the fact that we live in the greatest democracy that the planet has ever witnessed, I believe that we, and particularly our political representatives at the Federal and state levels, will eventually "get it right" so that the potential of our great industry and product can be fully realized by all citizens of America and the world.
Poster Comment: So, how low a standard of living do we want to have? Don't worry. The Chinese and East Indians will emit Carbon Dioxide for us. It won't matter at all. The sheeple will be fleeced by the elites again.
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#1. To: mirage (#0)
I guess we must have people with SUV's living on Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. I mean, their climates are warming up too. Jupiter got a new super storm out of our global warming apparently. These fucking idiots only know one thing. How to kill industry, and how to kill the American Economy through outright lies and manipulation.
Dying for old bastards, and their old money, isn't my idea of freedom.
I hate these Olympians. Truly, I do. Same damn bunch that gave us those bills of pains and penalties colloquially known as "civil rights." Not to mention some shooting wars. Bunch of War Pigs they are, in the Black Sabbath sense.
Remember the movie Groundhog Day? Good flick. What if instead of waking up over and over to the same day, time went on, but everyone in the town suffered from a recurring amnesia? And what if instead of falling in love, Bill Murray's protagonist wanted to be mayor? That'd be a neat movie.
With all the folks hysterical about Global Warming, I figured I'd post "the other side of the story" -- by the comments, it would appear a lot of folks aren't too interested.
Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.
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