18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cool thinking about a hot topic, September 14, 2007
Right from the start, when author Jeff Goodell discusses daily life around a coal extraction site in Wyoming, "Big Coal" is a captivating look at a subject that is seemingly as ordinary...as a lump of coal. Goodell knows his subject. He has witnessed coal mining operations in West Virginia, Wyoming and China. He has interviewed government officials, regulators, environmentalists, mine operators and the miners themselves. He has witnessed the devastation of strip mining and spoken to people whose land is literally washing away from them. He has spoken to those whose livelihoods are dependent on coal, and who even get a thrill from pitting their lives against Mother Nature. He has detonated explosives that exposed coal seams, accompanied inspectors worriedly checking excavation sites for potentially-fatal weak spots and ridden the rails with those who transport coal across the country.
"Big Coal" details the thrills and dangers of mining, an occupation that has cost 100,000 lives since 1900. It discusses the geological forces that laid down the coal beds, the differences between grades of coal like bituminous and anthracite and the historical personalities that bequeathed us our power system. He tackles tough issues -- like the efforts to control their entry of coal by-products mercury and sulfur into the environment. He is not afraid to tell it like it is. To the current administration's contention that there are 250 years of coal in the ground (250 million years in the words of George W. Bush), Goodell counters with studies that show that fewer than 20 years' worth of that coal that is *economically* extractable. Goodell analyzes the devastating impact of burning carbon-rich coal on the global environment. CO2 being a greenhouse gas with enormous impact on climactic warming trends. Goodell lays out a compelling case for the folly of building more and more plants that belch more of the stuff into the atmosphere. Goodell details the way Big Coal ignores and fights this long range problem for short-term profit. Most depressingly, he relates the political enablers that allow Big Coal to persuade Americans that polluting their streams and wrecking their children's environment is good for them. He discusses the way foreign juggernauts like China and India are beginning to repeat America's coal-centered mistakes in their quest to become world economic leaders, and the decreasing leverage that a coal-hungry America has to counter this threat.
The last third of the book was the hardest to read. It described the political expediency and pure greed that induces the coal lobby and US politicians to ignore, minimize and paper over the true costs of burning coal. Easy, low-cost solutions that can reduce coal's effect on the environment are put off as long as possible so coal execs can get a few more years of profits from the black rock. The public is misled to keep shareholders happy and politicians in office. This section caused me to put the book down out of frustration with our greed-drive political system.
But do not despair. "Big Coal" lays out the entire complex picture of coal and the industry required to harvest and exploit it. The book is not an attempt to destroy the coal industry or to destroy America's technological leadership. It is a clear-eyed and straightforward assessment of a difficult and complex reality. Reading the book will help you understand the many facets of the way that coal keeps the global economy running and that will (without adequate protections) land us in a world of hurt. Goodell's even-handed and comprehensive appraisal of the issues that fuel the coal controversy may make him seem biased in the eyes of some. And he is biased, if by this one means that he values clean air and land, a future free of climate change and live miners living to healthy old age with their families. But he is always fully truthful.
"Big Coal" will help you understand the issues -- technological, political, moral and economical-- to be tied to getting our power from coal. The Black Rock employs tens of thousands, allows millions to live in luxury and enables our nation's technological success. Yet it poisons our children, warms our planet and takes or shortens the lives of hundreds of thousands. I appreciated "Big Coal" for its ability to lay out the facts without the smog of industry and political obfuscation that usually accompanies their telling. An excellent, quite readable and educational book.
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33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent bit of journalism, June 22, 2006
This review is from: Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future (.) (Hardcover)
Goodell's thoughtful work serves as an important reminder to Americans of the dangers that come with cheap electricity. Yet the author takes his analysis one step further, demonstrating how coal's cheap price masks its many hidden costs, lung disease, environmental destruction, and global warming. Coal exists in a highly flawed marketplace, where none of these costs are included in the price paid by the consumer, a market failure that the coal industry gladly supports in order to avoid any reasonable regulator regime. Moreover, coal serves as a great case study of how the market place does not respond unless pushed to tertiary effects as the coal industry continues to build new plants that lack the gasification technology that eliminates most of the pollutants at a cost increase of 20-25%.
The author does fudge a bit when describing the economic bonanza that might come from government imposed demands for clean technology. That is not to say that I believe he is wrong, green industry is indeed booming and China and India will soon need to adopt it or suffer grave social dislocation and health costs resulting from pollution. However, Goodell could have done a better job offering data on this area.
In any event, energy remains perhaps the key issue of the 21st century. This author's aditton to the debate provides welcomed and easily digestible insights.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Expose, May 18, 2007
Goodell is an excellent writer, and the reporting contained in Big Coal could not be more timely. He has written the right book at the right time. The world of the coal industry is a bit like coal itself: it is buried--but not in the ground. Rather, it is covered by a thick layer of propaganda and public ignorance. Goodell unearths the unpleasant truths about coal mining, coal power, and the shady political game that both of these industries play. This is not so much a polemic, but simply a great piece of journalism. There are scores of fascinating personalities and memorable scenes. The book also achieves a remarkable overall synthesis. I could hardly put it down, and I think that if anyone was going to reveal the coal industry for what it is, Jeff Goodell was the one for the job.
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