Energy: Coal vs. Wind Power
Two opposing sides of America’s energy future are at war in the coalfields of southern West Virginia, an Aljazeera English People and Power Documentary.
Part I: ”This is what we do in West Virginia”
Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHnhLoTz1hk
Massey Energy, a coal company, wants to mine Coal River Mountain using a surface mining technique called mountaintop removal, but local residents and environmentalists through acts of civil disobedience are trying to save the mountain in order to build a wind farm instead and mine coal underground.
This struggle at local level reveals a national conflict, confronting global warming while simultaneously stimulating the US economy.
Residents are hoping that Barack Obama, the US president, who criticised mountaintop removal as a presidential candidate, will intervene by banning the practice altogether, probably the only way the wind project on Coal River Mountain could prevail.
Downstream Strategies study on the economics of a Wind Farm vs. MTR mine on Coal River Mountain.
[ Full Report ]
The study makes a number of interesting conclusions:
- When externalities such as public health and environmental quality are factored in, a mountaintop removal mine ends up losing $600 million over its expected 17 year life. The costs of these externalities are taken in by the public in the form of health expenses and environmental clean up costs as well as lost resources, like ginseng and wild game. A wind farm would remain profitable over its life, forever.
- The Raleigh County Government would receive $1.74 million each year from the property taxes on a wind farm, whereas only $36,000 would make its way back to Raleigh County from the severance taxes on the coal taken out of Coal River Mountain. And the money from the wind farm comes in forever.
- A scenario where a local wind industry came to the Raleigh County was considered. In this scenario, over 1700 people would be employed at a local wind turbine production facility. A facility such as this would only be placed in an area where wind farms were going up.
