Wyoming officials look at ways to rescue coal

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Wyoming officials look at ways to rescue coal

By Mead Gruver / The Associated Press

Published Jan 19, 2016 at 12:03 AM

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Public enemy No. 1 for climate change and no longer the fossil fuel utilities prefer to burn to generate electricity, coal has few allies these days. But one state is still fighting to save the industry: Wyoming.
....

The stakes for Wyoming are high. Coal mining and directly related business account for 14 percent of the economy and 1 in 5 jobs in the state, according to the university’s Center for Energy Economics. ... Here’s a look at what Wyoming has done — often at public expense — to try to save coal:

Underground coal gasification

Wyoming regulators recently agreed to let an Australian company pollute groundwater to experiment with a use for coal that doesn’t involve burning it in a power plant. ... Underground coal gasification involves partially burning coal still in the ground. The process yields a mix of gases called syngas, which can be burned more cleanly than coal directly. ... An Australian company, Linc Energy, has proposed a demonstration plant in the Powder River Basin, an arid coal-mining region in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana that supplies about 40 percent of the nation’s coal.

The process leaves a chemical brew in the ground. Regulators in Queensland, Australia, accuse Linc of causing serious environmental harm at underground coal gasification projects there. Wyoming and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to let the Wyoming project proceed even if it contaminated groundwater. But low natural gas prices appear to have stalled the project. Linc officials didn’t return a message seeking comment.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Priorities, priorities ! nt

[kristopher]

2. West Virginia coal industry seeking relief from legislature with little to give

Wednesday, January 13, 2016 10:13 AM ET
West Virginia coal industry seeking relief from legislature with little to give

Though West Virginia coal producers expect state officials to continue to be cooperative in tugging against the federal government's "boot on our throat," there may be little even a Republican majority in the state will be able to do to dress the wounds inflicted by an increasingly hostile energy market.

An industry that has, in the past, touted the massive boost it gave the state's budget, coal is now asking for a break. The challenge is that coal is asking for relief — in the form of tax reduction — at a time when the state's coffers have diminished alongside the decline of one of its primary industries.

"That would be the elephant in the room," West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney said of the state's severance tax. "It's a very difficult time to be talking about that, but our idea is that would allow us to hopefully produce more coal, it would allow our coal to more attractive in terms of lowering the fuel cost to the utilities to whom were selling coal and hopefully enhance their dispatch so they are making more electricity."

On Jan.13 at noon, the state will convene for the 2016 legislative session. Coal industry issues will certainly be on many lawmakers' minds, but few are expecting a focus on the state's coal industry much beyond tax issues or perhaps a state challenge to federal actions. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, severance taxes from coal and natural gas accounted for 13% of West Virginia's tax revenues in 2014....

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