A new role for coal.

• Author: Boulard, Garry
• Position: J. Davitt McAteer's policies for mining industry

For J. Davitt McAteer, the opening days of 2006 were hardly auspicious as he waited, along with the rest of the nation, to see whether or not a group of trapped miners in West Virginia could be saved.

Fielding calls from dozens of journalists, McAteer, the former assistant secretary of labor, mine safety and health administration, sought to explain the world of mines and miners. He ultimately came to view the final tragic result, which saw 12 miners perish (and four more in two accidents before the month ended) as a metaphor not just for the miners and the industry they work in, but also for how the nation at large perceives the industry.

"This is a world where change very often comes at a slow pace," says McAteer, "and that not only means with safety issues, but also the industry's embrace of new technologies and whether or not the people who rely on coal are supportive of those technologies and want to see them more widely developed."

McAteer, who is now the vice-president of sponsored programs at Wheeling Jesuit University and director of its Coal Impoundment Project, has been at times critical of the industry on safety issues. But he also thinks the industry has been victimized by a lack of government support in developing the kind of advanced technologies that could greatly reduce the mercury and sulfur dioxide pollutants normally associated with coal production.

To that end, as one of the authors of the report "Advanced Coal Technologies" published last Spring, McAteer made several recommendations. One suggests the federal government provide up to $4 billion over the next 10 years to help establish integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal technology. At the same time, he suggests an additional $3 billion in incentives for commercial-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.

"Obviously this is a new technology that holds out great promise, not only in terms of addressing our nation's energy needs, but also regarding the important environmental challenge of making coal use cleaner," says McAteer. "But whether or not we as a country are going to embrace this new technology depends on a lot of things, in particular our willingness to enter what would be an entirely new era for coal."

By posing such questions, McAteer has joined a growing list of industry and technology experts who believe that clean coal technology is the wave of the future.

But that future, those same experts add, is on the verge of being forestalled by the battles and preconceptions of the past.

AN IMAGE PROBLEM

"The image that people have of coal and how coal is produced is admittedly not the best," says Carl English, the president of American Electric Power, the nation's largest electricity generator. "They see it as something from the past that creates a lot of pollution by the manner in which it is produced."

Ashok Gupta, the director of Natural Resources Defense Council's air and energy program, agrees. "Anyone who is promoting some kind of new coal technology is going to have to deal with the old questions of public perception," he says. "It is hard to see how any kind of new technology can ever be fully utilized and accepted unless steps are taken to address the concerns that people have about coal, whether those concerns are centered around emission...