Nov 4, 2005 By Guest Commentary 5 min read

By David J. Klimek Let’s stop thinking about natural disasters, wars, politics or economy for a moment and think about my old friend coal.

I’m a Vietnam veteran and a mining engineer born and raised 50 miles south of Pittsburgh, Pa., in Greene County. It is the largest coal-producing county east of the Mississippi River. The pride of our various coals is called the Pittsburgh Seam. Old school miners called it the “Nine Foot.” It’s use over the past century built America.

Rather than focusing on mass production, I was always taught the value of our Pittsburgh coal for steel making and other products. Quality control was critical and it was reached through coal processing. So what, I thought, if we burn our lower grades of coal to make power, they will still need the good stuff for making things and our Pittsburgh coal is special.

After ‘Nam and college, I remember our first energy crisis in the mid-1970’s. The cost of fuel for our cars skyrocketed while we waited in line at the pumps. A few times we had to ration. What followed was a new energy policy to save our oil and burn our coal to make electricity.

Now let’s jump forward to today. Many technological advances have been made to mass-produce our coal, and we are doing just that at record paces. And since our mid-1970’s energy policy is still in place, the majority of our good coal is being marketed to power plants to be burned. Did you know that the normal efficiency of a power plant is one-third? The rest goes up into smoke and pollution.

Sometimes I have dreams that are grand. The dream I had about our coal is a step beyond our current energy policy. In my dream Greene County would be the hub of a new energy source. The base of the energy source would come from coal. Not just any coal, mind you, but our processed Pittsburgh coal. I know there are many advantages to producing an energy source at its source and transportation costs to market via the north-flowing Monongahela River and south-flowing Ohio and Mississippi rivers would be viable.

I am sure you are now wondering what kinds of energy sources I plan to produce. First, let’s acknowledge that the Pittsburgh Seam has been the most studied coal of all time. We know its chemical characteristics, so we have a good idea of what kinds of energy sources we could create from them. Some of the products are: carbon dioxide, methane gas, a non-polluting hydrogen, a gasified coal fuel and a liquified coal fuel. Walking a step further are: ultra-clean transportation fuels, diesel fuels for transit bus applications and a transportation bus fuel additive. Industry applications include: iron making, the making of masonry blocks and high-grade, lightweight concrete, a high-quality polymeric filler, fuel from recycled carbon, mercury, lead and other metals removal, the removal of acid gases, high-level emissions control, elemental sulfur reclamation and electrical co-generation. There are many easy and many endless products we could make by using our Pittsburgh coal seam. And of course, we could recycle everything.

Your final question may be how I plan to store these energy sources in a container for sale, storage and shipping. These containers are called fuel cells. A fuel cell is a device that converts a base fuel (hydrogen, natural gas, gasoline, diesel or coal) into electrical energy without combustion. A big plus is this process improves electrical power generation efficiency.

So here we are in Greene County, mass-producing all of the coal we can and marketing it to utilities to burn. Can you imagine how many hundreds of thousands of tons of our precious Pittsburgh seam coal have gone up in smoke over the past 30 years? Is this the best blast we can get for our buck? More than a hundred years ago some form of coal gas lit our towns and streets. And for years a liquified form of coal has run cars in Africa. Why waste the use of the best and most abundant coal in the eastern part of our country by just burning it? Our good coal is a precious natural resource.

I’ve heard and read a little about a new energy bill and themes called “Energy Security.” I’m sure they concern creating alternate fuels. The time to diversify the use of good coal is now, or never. At the rate we are mass-producing our good coal, it might not last another 50 years. To me, this would be a terrible waste. Now that the cost of energy has risen to within the cost of creating alternate fuels, I think the time has come to explore and make this a reality. Due to location, I also think Greene County is the best place to build an alternate fuels, mass-production facility. Producing the coal and creating fuel cells in the same backyard for shipment by rail, truck or barge to market is the most practical. The shame of it all is that if we don’t do it now, the time will never come.

David J. Klimek, a former Greene County resident, lives in Venetia..