Aurora Energy and the Alaska Railroad have despicably taken their erroneous "clean coal" message to a new and previously off-limits audience here in Seward. It's bad enough when the airwaves are dominated by false and intentionally misleading claims of cheap, clean coal being our salvation even though there is no such substance or process, but coal companies went too far this time.
The term "clean coal" was coined by the coal industry through television and radio commercials and through their high paid lobbyists in Washington D.C. It refers to the theory of developing a way to capture and store carbon pollution as coal is burned. That idea has never been more than a theory, and pilot projects have clearly illustrated that it takes so much more energy to pump the carbon pollution underground, that the economics of carbon-capture technology are actually prohibitive.
It would seem that someone apparently forgot to tell the Alaska Railroad and Aurora Energy the bad news that coal isn't, and can't be, "clean." Not that anyone should have to, the company's Usibelli coal is full of toxic metals that contribute to major problems with toxic heavy metal contamination in Alaska. The Arctic is an atmospheric sink for the mercury and other pollution emitted when our coal is burned in Asia. We recently joined most other states in needing to limit our fish consumption due to mercury contamination. Coal is also the largest carbon-dioxide emitting industry in the US, and we now fully understand that this and other greenhouse gases are pushing our climate to new and dangerous extremes.
Pushing false talking points about "clean coal" is deceitful enough, but Aurora Energy took it one shameful step further.
Recently, 75 third and fourth graders from Seward Elementary went on a field trip to see real-life situations as they studied energy. This field trip included the Alaska Vocational Technical Center's recently erected wind generator and the City of Seward's new back-up diesel generator, and wound up at the Alaska Railroad's dock for a tour of the coal export facility operated by Aurora Energy, a subsidiary of Usibelli Coal, Inc. Unfortunately, as they were leaving, the young students were given "goodie bags" whose contents were not screened by the teachers before being passed out to our children to take home. The bags of "goodies" included cellophane wrapped "coal candy" with "Usibelli Coal, Inc." stamped on them, a fist-sized lump of coal in a sandwich bag, lapel pins and refrigerator magnets emblazoned with "I Love Alaskan Clean Coal," and a small packet of "reclamation seeds," along with a colorful postcard of their strip mine near Healy.
Without instructions as to what to do with the coal and what was and wasn't coal candy, my 9-year-old granddaughter responsibly kept it from her two-year-old brothers and gave the contents to her parents, who passed it on to me. Since then, I have been trying to learn how this happened and how to prevent it from ever happening again. This shameless attempt to exploit our children is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. The Alaska Railroad and Aurora Energy may have the right to saturate the airwaves with their misleading messaging as they attempt to prolong coal's subsidized dominance and keep the riches flowing for a few more years, but they do not have the right to pollute our precious children's minds. They do not have the right to give eight- and nine-year-olds a bag with two identical "goodies" -- one a toxic rock and the other a piece of candy. It is irresponsible and it is shameful.
Coal-fired energy is unsustainable and is irrefutably the dirtiest fuel on the planet and challenges our very existence. Coal is the fuel of the past, and fuel-less energy is our hope for the future. Don't our children deserve to know the whole truth?
Russ Maddox has lived in Seward for 29 years and is an active volunteer advocate in the conservation community. He owns and operates a small business to fund his conservation efforts.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not endorsed by Alaska Dispatch. Alaska Dispatch welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.