Wait, Coal is Good?

May 12, 2010 by Alex Epstein

Did you notice the irony in President Obama’s eulogy for the 29 coal miners from Massey Energy who died recently in West Virginia? Obama has repeatedly denounced the work of coal miners for emitting CO2 and has said of coal companies that he will “bankrupt them” through “a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.” More broadly, he has shown hostility toward all fossil fuels, speaking of “the tyranny of oil” and proclaiming “the age of oil must end in our time.”

So what could the President say about men who died doing jobs he believes shouldn’t exist? What could he find positive to say? The only thing he could come up with, apparently, was admitting the truth that he denies every other day of the year–that coal miners are producing abundant, affordable, indispensable energy.

From the speech:

Day after day, they would burrow into the coal, the fruits of their labor, what we so often take for granted: the electricity that lights up convention centers like this; that lights up our churches and homes, our schools and offices; the energy that powers our country and the world.

What the President did not admit is that coal (along with other fossil fuels) is indispensable in part because all his favored sources of “green energy,” such as solar panels and windmills,  can produce nowhere near the cheap, reliable electricity we get from coal. What the President did not admit is that he’s part of the chorus demonizing fossil fuels, and that he has called for emissions from fossil fuel use to be cut 80% worldwide by 2050 despite no remotely plausible large-scale replacement.

The most true and most hypocritical line in his whole speech was: “the fruits of their labor, what we so often take for granted.” What do you mean “we,” President Obama? The reason so many people take for granted the benefits of coal is because people like you make them feel guilty for emitting CO2, while completely evading the indispensable positives we get from coal and other fossil fuels. If you really want to do honor to these coal miners, start giving speeches about the value of industrial energy, and about how a combination of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear–technologies that the “green” movement opposes savagely–are the most promising means of providing it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons