EnergyBiz - September/October 2007 - (Page 27) industry has about the coal industry? LEEr Probably today it would be trying to grasp all of the cost pressures that the coal industry is under. Every industry has a lot of cost pressures today. The coal industry has more than its fair share. The cost of coal mining has gone up dramatically over the last several years. The opportunity for the coal industry to return to the 1990s, where productivity gains overwhelmed increased cost pressures, has gone away. EnErgyBiz What is your opinion of increased generation of electricity at the mine and construction of new transmission to deliver it to market? LEEr The electric utility industry would love to see additional transmission grid. But people do not want the line through their backyard. It’s going to be an issue for the utility industry to get it done. Every utility executive I’ve ever talked to is adamant that we need to do it and in doing so we will make the overall grid more reliable. EnErgyBiz Coal will be needed to fire up 90,000 megawatts of additional electricity in the next two decades. That’s 300 million tons of coal demand. Is that doable? LEEr We have the coal. The Powder River Basin supplies 400 million tons a year. The Powder River Basin will continue to expand to 500 to 600 million tons. It takes significant capital investment by the railroads. But it certainly can be done. EnErgyBiz The federal government is predicting that the share of electricity produced by coal is going to increase in the next two decades. LEEr By 2030, the federal government is forecasting coal’s share of electric generation will go from approximately 50 percent to 57 percent. The total pie is much bigger as well. Coal is increasingly being recognized as the key critical component to America’s energy future. If we look back at the last 30 years, we have more than tripled the use of coal. The air is cleaner. Several pollutants are less than 50 percent of what they were back in 1970. You’ve seen huge technological gains in the mining, transportation and combustion of coal. Our next challenge will be CO2. I fully believe that we can develop the technologies. We haven’t yet. There’s more work to be done. But as we move forward, I actually see that we will not only be using coal for electric generation. It will have an increased role to play as coal enters the transportation fuel segments through gasification and liquefaction. If we are successful in actually building the infrastructure and developing the engine for the true hydrogen car, coal will probably be the source of the hydrogen. Steven F. Leer sourcE: rEutErs/chiP East cmE/Ks EnErgyBiz As a leader in the coal industry, do you think there’s a need for a greater investment in the grid? LEEr Yes. A reliable electric grid is one of the keys to a strong economy whether you’re in China or you’re in America. www.energycentral.com E n E rgyB i z 27 http://www.zolotech.com http://www.zolotech.com http://www.energycentral.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.