It is a fact that the Sherco plant is the largest coal-fired power plant in the Midwest, and it produces 2,400 megawatts (MW) of energy for 2.5 million people, more power than both of the state’s nuclear plants combined.  The Becker plant meets or exceeds Federal air standards, and will spend $500 million on emissions scrubbers going forward.  It provides 800 jobs at peak maintenance, and pays 75 per cent of the local property tax burden, Newberger said.

 

Solar and wind cannot meet the anticipated power needs at this point, and conversion to natural gas at the Sherco facility would require a major pipeline and cost more than a billion dollars.  A plant closure here would mean the loss of those 800 company jobs, and related jobs to the tune of around 5,000, Newberger said which would be “devastating to Central Minnesota.”

 

Coal has always been big business, even though now it is often relegated to the “ugly stepchild” role while the “pretty one” (natural gas) gets all of the praise and attention. If you’ve ever spent any time in Kentucky or West Virginia, you know that it is also a way of life for endless generations of families who have sent their men down to the coal face.  And it hasn’t changed much, in terms of the health and safety risks involved, but it is the life the miners know, and they don’t want to give it up.

 

 Coal from Wyoming and Montana comes to Becker, 30,000 tons every day, nine million tons per year, according to the Xcel Energy website.  But it also goes to other places, like Oregon and Washington State, where a project called the Gateway Pacific Coal Terminal is struggling to become reality in the face of environmental opposition and government red tape.

 

 The proposal involves Peabody Energy, SSA Marine of Portland, and the Burlington, Northern and Santé Fe Railroad in a consortium that plans to build a massive coal shipping facility in the middle of the Cherry Point Aquatic Preserve, which is also the ancestral land and fishing grounds of the Lummi tribe, though that has not stopped a major aluminum smelting operation and other coal-fired manufacturing plants from getting permits to operate there, according to the Sierra Club.

 

 The coal that is strip-mined in Montana and Wyoming would be carried by rail to the Cherry Point facility, once the plan is in place, and loaded on ships for transport to primarily China and India. Somewhere between 48 and 54 million tons a year would be exported from this single facility, with other west coast operations also coming on-line which may solve a great deal of the environmental problem with coal.

 

If the exploding industries in those far eastern countries continue to grow, there won’t be any coal left for our domestic consumption. 

 

Except that there is a lot of coal in this country, enough to power the nation for 200 years, Newberger said.  No doubt, but what will future generations do about things like acid rain (which has enjoyed a 60 per cent reduction in recent years due to regulation) and human health risks?

 

I think it’s never a good idea to bet against American ingenuity, once it is turned loose on a problem without interference from government or big business.  When Lee Iacocca was vice-president of Ford Motor Co., he claimed that pollution control equipment requirements would mean not only the end of the American car industry, but the end of American manufacturing, period.  Not quite.

 

 The term “acid rain” was created in 1872 by Robert Angus Smith, who noticed that the rain in London was destroying stone statues and building faces.  Powered by coal, London itself was called “The Great Smoke” at the time.  All gone now, nuclear is the thing there. 

 

 Germany has bet big on a nation-wide solar power expansion, while cars in Iceland run on hydrogen, which produces water vapor as the sole byproduct when it is burned in a vehicle engine.  And hydrogen requires no refining, as it already exists in the air we breathe.

 

 Ontario is currently implementing a program to replace all coal-fired electricity generation plants.  The Atikokan Generating Station in northwestern Ontario sits 118 miles west of Thunder Bay, and used low-sulfur coal to generate 230 MW of electricity to provide power to 70,000 customers until 2012.

 

 The generating station is currently being renovated to operate entirely on biomass to provide electric power, and will be the largest biomass-only power plant in North America when the $200 million dollar (Canadian) project is completed in August.

 

 With modern technology, it may be possible to buy some time for coal, but the end is near.  Solar, wind, cold fusion and power sources not yet imagined will see to that, and they will put an end to petroleum powered devices as well.  Hybrids and all-electric cars are already creeping around the edges of the automobile business, and their success is also only a matter of time.

 It will be a rough ride for places like Becker, but change is coming.