There is approximately one trillion tons of coal world wide. or so estimates relate. The emerging nations of this world need this cheap source of electrical generation in order to actually emerge from third world status as there is simply no other way to cheaply generate the necessary electricity.

I understand that my comment above is not the thrust of this article and that American coal companies are despicable, union busting destroyers of the land and the spirit and health of the people. I just wanted to frame the situation a bit better.

If we are going to frame this subject in its fullest context whether we are going to speak of developing nations or future energy research in the US it should be noted for the record the depth and scope of the fraud committed by the American corporate elites which have controlled the debate and the purse strings in the halls of congress the last fifty years as it relates to basic research in energy and everything else coal, oil and Nuclear.

The first, and only job one, the electric generating industry has really followed the last fifty years is pass the cost of ANY research, new generating plants and environmental damage wrought by open pit mining onto the tax payer.

It is long past just a silly little sick joke that the energy industry employs hundreds of lobbyists, whose only purpose is to make it a sure thing, is they the lobbyist, and rooms full of lawyers working in back rooms for these industry groups are the ones who write ANY legislation on every aspect of energy production and research in the US.

The goal here is then screw the rate payer at the local level, screw the American tax payer at the federal level and laugh all the way to bank. Billions of public money in tax credits, tax write downs and outright subsidies are the only booty the energy industry really cares about.

Yet, again We socialize the risk, the cost, but let these ‘free market’ maggots reap the benefit because their TV commercials paint them like little inventors in labs in the tradition of Mr. Edison – what a load of fuck crap lies.

Trolling pigs feeding at the public coffer is a more apt description.

One need only look around to see the results…

Summer after summer brown outs and black outs, never enough line-men to do repairs after storms- when lines are torn apart and it is only under the Obama administration plan, that will give them billions in free money will they even try to modernize the grid.

Nothing like a free lunch, except if you are a GM employee…

But wait, if you read the business press the last thirty years under “de-regulation” the electric generation industry and the coal industry has had seen the highest rate of profit ever in the history of their industry.

One would think they would have put that money back into the grid, new research on solar and wind or “clean coal” and not have chose instead to blow the tops of hundreds of mountains all over Appalachia and then plead poverty when before congressional committees wondering why things fall apart every where one looks.

Might I point out the sad story of how Montana Power was looted by these corporate gangsters and a rough equivalent of this kind of corporate “re-organization” was repeated in state after state only to see rate payers get higher bills, a declining and unrepaired grid and more pollution from “green coal”.

This is what happens when corporate gangsters pass themselves off as lobbyists “only protecting” the “interest of rate payers”.

Like so many other industries in the US the energy industry is bag of maggot monkeys who only desire and goal is to steal from the public by getting the rate payer and the tax payer to fund their lifestyle in their Mc Mansions and they lie with straight faces before the congress and the media.

The wisest model the third world could follow is not our model -but invent one of their own - a new one based on sustainable solar power and new research.

If you seriously think the degenerate bastards who run our mines, electric industry and private energy labs are doing their due diligence then go ahead and throw billions at them just like Wall Street and then enjoy the social collapse when the rats finally sink the ship.

In case you were wondering let’s try re-regulating this industry and put a cap on their income and get their paid whores out of congress – anything else is the delusions of fools.

How can mountain-top removal possibly be explained to future generations? 'We had no choice..' or 'times were tough..' ?

This has nothing to do with Rednecks. The dictionary definition of redneck is someone who is at least ignorant and narrow minded, often racist, sometimes even fascist. It doesn't have one thing to do with Appalachia nor the South, which West
Virginia is generally not counted with as it fought on the US side in the US Civlil War breaking away from Virginia which had just seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy. If hillbilly is what's meant, that really has to with people of remote rural areas of the South. This isn't a minor matter. The Huffington Post ought to be doing better than this. As Someone who is from the South, I can say I have a hillbilly background, but am not in the least a redneck. A redneck can be from anywhere including Israel such as those supporting what the IDF is doing in the Gaza Strip.

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Union representation in the underground mines is getting very low too. All of the mines of the two big Applacian operators - Massey and IGC, and most of Consol's mines are non-union.

My guess is only 15-20% of underground mines are still union. Pay may still be very good compared to Wal-Mart, but work hours are going up and each new miner gets a bit lower a wage than the one hired the prtevious week.

I have a couple remarks regarding Red Rick's comments:

MTR Mining is not necessary, even if, for arguing, we must continue to mine coal. It represents only a small percentage of the coal extracted in WV or KY and only a few percent of US coal production. Most of it could still be mined by less destructive methods.

The developing world does not require coal generated electricity - this is the argument the big WB/IMF "economic hit men tell the developing world. For most poor countries, a mix of wind, solar, and gas-fired combustion turbines would be better because it is scalable and doesn't require huge up front debt-financed expenditures. If large ganerating plants are needed, better that they be nuclear for all humanitiy's sake.
---USAn---