Coal: The cornerstone of America’s energy future

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Developing a clean, abundant, and affordable energy supply may be the most important challenge facing the U.S. today. President Bush made the issue clear when he proclaimed in his 2006 State of the Union address that, “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem.” A serious problem indeed, but not a problem without solutions, assuming we are motivated to invest the resources needed to develop permanent solutions and to find a consistent political will to implement them.

The National Coal Council (see sidebar) is a Federal Advisory Committee that reports directly to the secretary of energy. Its sole purpose is to advise, inform, and make recommendations to the secretary on issues related to coal or the coal industry. The report, titled “Coal: America’s Energy Future,” was completed earlier this year and forwarded to Secretary Bodman in April.

What is the National Coal Council?

The National Coal Council is a private, nonprofit body chartered in 1984 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Its mission is purely advisory: to provide guidance and recommendations, as requested, to the U.S. secretary of energy on general policy matters relating to coal. The council was founded on the conviction that it could make a vital contribution to America’s energy security by providing information useful to the secretary and other policy makers. The purpose of that information, of course, is to help shape policies to promote greater use of coal in environmentally sound and cost-effective ways that serve to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil and gas.

Members of the National Coal Council are appointed by the secretary of energy. They represent a wide geographic area and a broad spectrum of diverse interests from business, industry, and other groups—not just the coal industry. Members are appointed based on their knowledge, expertise, and stature in their fields of endeavor. The National Coal Council is headed by a chairman and vice-chairman, who are elected by the council. Its activities are funded entirely by voluntary contributions from its members, and it is forbidden by law to engage in lobbying or other such activities.

Matters that the secretary of energy would like the council to consider are submitted as a request in the form of a letter outlining the nature and scope of the proposed study. The first major studies undertaken by the National Coal Council at the request of the secretary were presented to him in the summer of 1986.

For more information on the National Coal Council and its activities, or for the full text of “Coal: America’s Energy Future,” go to www.nationalcoalcouncil.org.

The report addresses the secretary’s request in the context of the president’s desire to lessen U.S. dependence on the Middle East for energy and his Advanced Energy Initiative. Running more than 125 pages, it details eight findings and recommendations for using advanced technology to leverage America’s extensive coal assets and reduce its dependence on imported oil.

Which way did they go?

With apologies to Confucius, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will do. That proverb applies to developing a focused energy policy supportive of investment decisions that will impact generations to come. The journey to greater U.S. energy independence has three legs: fully understanding our current energy situation, identifying the desired future situation (the end state), and charting a course between the two. Engineers and scientists can plot the milestones along the way, but it is a consistent national energy policy that sets the overall course. Progress toward the destination can be measured by the rate of public and private investment in enabling technologies.

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