Big coal : the dirty secret behind America's energy future

Long dismissed as a relic of a bygone era, coal is back -- with a vengence. Coal is one of the nation's biggest and most influential industries -- Big Coal provides more than half the electricity consumed by Americans today -- and its dominance is growing, driven by rising oil prices and calls for energy independence. Is coal the solution to America's energy problems?

On close examination, the glowing promise of coal quickly turns to ash. Coal mining remains a deadly and environmentally destructive industry. Nearly forty percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year comes from coal-fired power plants. In the last two decades, air pollution from coal plants has killed more than half a million Americans. In this eye-opening call to action, Goodell explains the costs and consequences of America's addiction to coal and discusses how we can kick the habit.

Author Notes

JEFF GOODELL is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine . He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith . Goodell's memoir, Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family , was a New York Times Notable Book.

Reviews 4

Publisher's Weekly Review

After a generation out of the spotlight, coal has reasserted its centrality: the United States "burn[s] more than a billion tons" per year, and since 9/11 and the Iraq war, independence from foreign oil has become positively patriotic. Rolling Stone contributing editor Goodell's last book, the bestselling Our Story, was about a mine accident, which clearly made a deep impression on him. Our reliance on coal-the unspoken foundation of our "information" economy-has, Goodell says, led to an "empire of denial" that blocks us from the investments necessary to find alternative energy sources that could eventually save us from fossil fuel. Goodell's description of the mining-related deaths, the widespread health consequences of burning coal and the impact on our planet's increasingly fragile ecosystem make for compelling reading, but such commonplace facts are not what lift this book out of the ordinary. That distinction belongs to Goodell's fieldwork, which takes him to Atlanta, West Virginia, Wyoming, China and beyond-though he also has a fine grasp of the less tangible niceties of the industry. Goodell understands how mines, corporate boardrooms, commodity markets and legislative chambers interrelate to induce a national inertia. Goodell has a talent for pithy argument-and the book fairly crackles with informed conviction. (June 8) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Viewing the political and economic heft of the American coal industry, journalist Goodell presents an admiring view of the workers who mine, transport, and burn coal and an adversarial posture toward the CEOs, lobbyists, and politicians who monitor industry interests. In the background of the author's narratives, which are pegged to his visits to coalfields, coal-hauling trains, and power plants, lurks environmental pollution. Goodell injects relevant statistics (e.g., on average, an American uses 20 pounds of coal in a lifetime) that effectively personalize the reader's connection to an industry most ignore until a power outage. He astutely recognizes and heavily criticizes how mining companies and utilities capitalize on this disconnection in their public relations. Disputing their assertions that standards of living will suffer from the host of regulations and treaties he favors, Goodell particularizes his objections in detail useful to those who closely follow environmental issues. The circulation numbers of a comparable critique of the fossil fuels complex, Boiling Point, by Ross Gelbspan (2004), may predict Goodell's appeal to library patrons. --Gilbert Taylor Copyright 2006 Booklist

Choice Review

This book is a primer on all aspects of the coal business, from geology to technology to politics, and an excellent introduction for the general reader. Goodell, a skilled writer but not a technical specialist, offers much food for thought to those unfamiliar with the critical role coal plays in satiating America's voracious appetite for energy. Since coal is the favored alternative to maintain or expand our current level of energy consumption in the future, a critical look at the technology and societal impacts of coal use is very timely. The topic is a big one, but the book succeeds by dividing it into three areas: "The Dig" (how coal is mined and moved on a huge scale and the many risks to the people and land involved), "The Burn" (how coal combustion generates electricity, a historical review of its key role in developing America's "gospel of consumption," and the additional health risks involved), and "The Heat" (how such a carbon-intensive fuel may trigger abrupt climate change, and how coal companies use their political muscle to keep increasing its use). References are given via reasonably comprehensive footnotes. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates; two-year technical program students. B. M. Simonson Oberlin College

Library Journal Review

The author of the best-selling Our Story, about nine miners caught underground, begs to differ with President Bush's assertion that coal is the way to go. Tragically relevant; with a six-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Introduction	p. xi
ItThe Dig
1 The Saudi Arabia of Coal	p. 3
2 Coal Colonies	p. 21
3 Dogholes	p. 48
4 The Carbon Express	p. 74
II The Burn
Infinite Needs	p. 97
The Big Dirty	p. 119
"A Citizen Wherever We Serve"	p. 147
III The Heat
8 Reversal of Fortune	p. 173
9 The Coal Rush	p. 202
10 The Frontier	p. 226
Epilogue: An Empire of Denial	p. 249
Acknowledgments	p. 259
Notes	p. 263
Index	p. 297

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