Coal

During the next decade, electricity demand around the ever-brightening Pacific Rim will likely quadruple the capacity of Asian coal-fired power plants, opening an enormous potential market for U.S. coal. With it could come a big market for environmentally advanced clean-burning technology, if U.S. firms can stay in the competition. Now, U.S.

Creating a critical link between America's Western coal mines and the Pacific Rim, the new Los Angeles Export Terminal is expected to help boost exports for the nation's $17.9-billion coal industry, city officials and business leaders said Thursday as they inaugurated the state-of-the art, $200-million facility at Terminal Island.

Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co. is the largest coal producer in central Appalachia, operating 47 underground and surface mines in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia. It was founded in 1920 as a coal brokering business and began mining operations in 1945. In 2009, Massey reported coal revenue of $2.3 billion and recorded net income of $104.4 million. Massey reported employment of 5,851 at the end of 2009. The company has repeatedly fended off organizing drives by the United Mine Workers of America and the union currently represents 76 Massey employees, union spokesman Phil Smith said.

In the flower garden in front of Dr. Donald P. Vrabec's house is a large lump of coal, a conversation piece that sometimes puzzles visitors. "From time to time, people will think this is pretty unsightly and say, 'Don, why don't you get that ugly lump of coal out of your flower bed?' And I'll say to them, 'I think it's beautiful,' or else, simply, 'It's a reminder,' " Vrabec said.

Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the crack cocaine of the developing world. It is the inexpensive and plentiful fuel powering the rising economies of Asia -- and because of that, it has become one of the most intractable problems in combating global warming. Even as the political will and grass-roots support to rein in rising carbon dioxide levels is growing, a large segment of the world is using more coal than ever.

There is so much coal here, the ground has smoked for centuries from spontaneous combustion and the cliff walls have turned scarlet from the heat. There also is so much wild country here that writers have compared the lonely buttes, boulder-strewn canyons and fractured table lands to the biblical wilderness where Christ went to renounce worldly temptations.

Before the little building rose, everything was simpler. Outsiders pretty much stayed out. Insiders traded with each other. Miners mined coal. Desert winds blew, nomads wandered, lonely lakes froze and thawed, and the town called Wuhai went about its business. Which wasn't very much business at all. Sixteen hours from Beijing -- and that was by train. A car trip through Inner Mongolia's grasslands and cracked desert could be even longer.

For years, coal-country lawmakers have talked about turning the abundant natural resource into a fuel for motor vehicles. The idea went nowhere. But now it has taken on momentum, oddly enough, just as Congress appears ready to pass legislation to fight global warming. Even though coal has been attacked as a major culprit in climate change, lawmakers say a coal-derived fuel could solve another problem: U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Coal-futures trading opened for the first time Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, in what some took as a positive sign for the homely commodity that remains the nation's biggest energy source. A modest volume of 98 contracts was traded for low-sulfur Appalachian coal, but market players said it was a good start for a contract that Nymex has had in the works for nearly three years.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the environmentalist, hates the pollution caused when coal is burned to make electricity. But Schwarzenegger, the businessman, likes the low-cost, plentiful electrons produced by coal-fired generators from Wyoming to Nevada. Over the last year, the governor has enthusiastically embraced both positions, issuing seemingly contradictory executive decrees, legal agreements and statements.