National Coal Expert: “Mining is a Loser” in Practically Every Way
Originally posted at The Great Energy Challenge blog
Anytime coal’s cost to America is discussed, the coal industry reflexively talks about what an economic lifeline it is for the states in which it operates. Headwaters Economics, a Bozeman-based think tank focusing on natural resource issues, has a solid
new study that’s getting national attention for undercutting those claims. For instance, the Headwaters study finds that “[f]ossil fuel production has not insulated energy-producing states from fiscal crisis,” that “[f]ossil fuel extraction has a limited influence at the state level on economic indicators such as GDP by state, personal income, and employment,” and that “[t]he volatility of fossil fuel markets poses obstacles to the stability and long-term security of economic growth in energy-producing regions.”
This is a problem for the coal industry, which
spends heavily to construct a fantasy world in which it’s a “clean” industry to which we should feel grateful, a vital supplier of our power, and an economic lifeline to host communities.
But in the real world, coal’s case is even weaker than the Headwaters study shows. The work of
Professor Michael Hendryx of West Virginia University goes even further. His
work has looked at the costs of coal mining to the Appalachian communities that host it.
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