SMACKDOWN: KENNEDY VS. KING COAL

The Coal Conversation
January 21, 2010 (Charleston MetroNews)

"According to Robert Kennedy, Jr…mountaintop removal mining is a sin against the environment, but Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship says the real sin is trying to close an industry while millions of Americans are out of work…[They] talked candidly about their take on the practice and what impact it should have on the country's future energy portfolio [at the University of Charleston]…"

[Kennedy, recounting what his father, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., said about coal companies and mountaintop removal coal mining:] "They're not just destroying the environment. They're permanently impoverishing these communities because there's no way that they can ever reestablish an economy on these barren moonscapes that are left behind…"

Watch the entire debate. From Clean Skies TV

[Blankenship:] "To force the coal industry out of West Virginia or surface mining would be a huge mistake for household budgets. It'd be a huge mistake for the industry in this country. It'd be a huge mistake for our homeland security…I spent most of December in China and I tell you that they're planning on burning 200 to 300 million tons of coal each year than they burned the previous year. Their increase in coal burn is about the equivalent of West Virginia's total production every six months…"

[Kennedy:] "China has committed to spend $7 trillion over the next five years developing its wind and solar energy. More than its spending on its military. It sees this as a new arms race…Don, often talks about his concern for the workers of this state, but this is an industry that through a ruthless pursuit of total efficiency has eliminated 90,000 jobs, 90-percent of its workforce since I was born…"

A mountaintop removal mining moonscape. (click to enlarge)

[Blankenship:] "When you damage your neighbor based on theories of global warming, based on untruths, based on personal gain like investing in solar panels in the Mojave Desert, which is now being stopped by the enviros, that's the true sin…"

"The only point both men said they would agree on that night was that carbon sequestration technology being utilized at few power plants will not work…"