Why does pennsylvania still use coal

A conveyor belt dumped coal into a huge, shiny pile. A massive, nearly vertical pit sat in the center of the bustling scene, exposing a darker band, deep in the rock. At the beginning of the 20th century, this was an underground mine, with mine-shafts burrowed deep into the earth and underground workers wielding pickaxes.

It was shuttered for decades, then intermittently surface-mined before closing again. Now, nearly 20 years after the last operations, Blaschak is blasting away the rock to get at the remaining coal seam.

Metallurgical coal, like anthracite, has taken a slightly different trajectory than the more common thermal coal, the kind used to generate electricity. Anthracite is instead used in home heating and metallurgy, like steel-making.

While the rise of natural gas has continued to gut the thermal coal industry, the market for metallurgical coal is growing steadily — though not to the levels of its heyday. Once, there were nearly million tons of anthracite coal mined every year in Pennsylvania. If that comes to fruition, there would be major positive ramifications for the regional economy. But what about today? The Trump administration did scrap certain Obama-era policies in order to allow increased production by coal-fired power plants, a move lauded by supporters, but one the Guardian reported could lead to 1, more deaths by pollution per year by Another change, announced last week, would also make it easier to build coal-fired plants.

The only slashed regulation that has touched the industry so far, said Driscoll, is the end of the Stream Protection Rule , which prevented companies from dumping ash and waste into waterways. Nationwide, there has been a slight increase in mining jobs since Trump took office.

One in Somerset County took center stage when Trump referenced it while pulling out of the Paris climate accords in Yet, overall, according to the Pa.

For instance, when news of the Mount Carmel mine re-opening broke, local news stations made it sound like it would bring dozens of new jobs. But like all the workers here, Gasparetti was transferred from another mine that Blaschak had just closed, only a few miles away. Those media reports about new jobs got it wrong, says Driscoll.

So far, nothing new has been created. Coal in the U. Trump gave hope to a group of people I respect, admire, and have spent my working career with. Anthracite can be used in filtration and water purification.

Like coal, manufacturing was also once a lifeblood of the area around Mahanoy City, with hundreds of small factories making products like cigars, plastics, and thermal underwear. There is commerce, industry, and a strong government services sector in the Valley. Modern federal and state air and water pollution laws are having some positive environmental effect. But the coal-created economy — much as it caused a fever that burned for more than years — was dirty in innumerable ways.

Miners benefitted. They also suffered. The region grew, then shrank. Hard carbon came out of the earth, and the waste ended up on the land and in the water, air and, eventually, the atmosphere. Lee Epstein is an environmental lawyer with four decades of practice in the public, private and non-profit sectors.

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