 There's a lot of politicians in West Virginia who like to talk about the importance of coal as a domestic source of energy. Those tend to be the exact same politicians who stress United States energy independence as a policy goal.
So, here's what I'd like to hear them explain:
If coal is such an important national asset to secure American energy independence, why haven't they put a ban on all coal exports yet?
A little bit of math on the numbers from the Energy Information Administration (see: Coal Overview, Including Imports and Exports, Most Recent Months and Years-to-Date, and Years 1973 - Present), tells me that from 1973 through April, 2009 we exported 15% of all the coal we produced in the United States.
In the most recent 28 months that data is available, we exported 5.9% of the coal we produced. Another way of looking at it is, at that rate we spend the first three weeks of production each year for coal to send to other countries, then we start mining coal to power electric plants here.
It's bad enough that people, communities, and our environment are suffering for the benefit of cheap electricity in the United States. It's even worse we're doing all this to ourselves so a few coal company owners can make a quick buck selling off the fruits of hard coal miner labor overseas.
Flickr image credit: Mike Quick |
