Reply #39: WVa has no other viable industries to entertain. [View All]

[phleshdef]

Though I suppose we could catch a little wind on top of the mountains, we aren't going to get jack from current solar technologies.

Coal CAN still support a regional economy, or at least improve it. Even if it only employed half as many people as before, that would be twice as many people that are employed with decent jobs now. The only thing you can do in southern WVa right now is hope a Walmart opens up nearby or leave the state (many are taking the latter option).

I am all for making sure that coal mining is performed under regulations that keep people that live nearby from being harmed. I am all for banning mountain top removal and doing it "the old way" as well. Most of all, I am all for coal becoming a union operated industry again instead of being nothing more than a non-job generating machine that keeps AT Massey execs in their fat cat status.

But what I'm not for is ignoring the fact that we have a resource that could continue to be tapped into, not just for energy needs but for other products that we have discovered can be created from coal (for instance, WVU figured out how to make a great, environmentally safe insulation from slate).

No one has put a lot of honest time in clean coal research and thats why I have many doubts about your assertion that its a waste of time. How can we ever know if there hasn't been any real time "wasted" on the research?

Maybe its an issue of pride for a person like me that grew up in the last waning breath of the coal fields of Logan County, WVa. All I can tell you is that we had nothing there before we had a strong, unionized coal industry. We had everything while we had it and we haven't had anything since it went on decline.