A new study finds rising production costs, not cheap natural gas, was the lead factor that drove thousands of coal mines across Appalachia to close.
The analysis, published last week by the nonpartisan, environmental think tank, Resources for the Future, scrutinized the impact that natural gas prices, stagnant electricity demand and rising costs had on the ability of coal mines to stay in business.
The researchers created a model that allowed them to study different factors that affected the profitability of coal mines using public data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Energy Information Administration and information reported by public coal companies in their annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
They examined how low natural gas prices, electricity demand, and production costs affected mines that closed over the course of a 10-year period starting in 2002.
Ian Lange, director of the minerals and energy economics program at the Colorado School of Mines, and lead author of the study, said while low natural gas prices and lackluster electricity demand definitely played a role in mine closures, the researchers found rising costs was the biggest factor in two-thirds of mines closures.
Part of the reason costs climbed at Appalachian coal mines is tied to the region’s long history of extracting the resource.
Compared to other regions of the nation that produce coal, like the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana, coal fields in central Appalachia requires more labor and resources to extract.
“In central Appalachian coal is deeper in the ground and the seams are thinner,” said John Deskins, an associate professor of economics at West Virginia University. “Because we’ve been mining coal for so long and so aggressively, we’ve already taken out all the easier to get coal.”
Harrison Fell, an associate professor at North Carolina State University who was not involved in the study, said it was surprising that natural gas prices didn’t play a more central role. He said today, gas prices are lower than they were during the period studied, which makes keeping mines from closing even more of a challenge.
“The underlying driver to all of this, and I think the most important thing to keep in mind here, is that by and large almost all the coal we produce here goes to coal-fired generation in the U.S., and so anything that reduces coal-fired generation in the U.S. is going to reduce coal production. And eventually, that reduction in demand for coal production is going to lead to mine closures,” he said. “So, the name of the game, if you’re goal is to keep coal mines open, is to keep coal-fired generation going.”
The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation. Co-authors included Brett Jordan of the University of Alaska, Anchorage and Joshua Linn, with the University of Maryland and Resources for the Future.
The National Science Foundation heard public comments as part of a process to consider changes to the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
The Register-Herald reports nearly 50 people outlined their reasoning Thursday for why the Pocahontas County facility should stay in operation as it is.
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement highlights five possibilities for the facility. They range from the foundation seeking collaboration with interested parties that would share costs, to demolition of the site. The foundation’s representatives named the collaboration option as its preferred alternative, but said all avenues must be explored.
A statement from U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin highlighted the scientific accomplishments of the observatory. U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s statement emphasized its impact on the community.
The study of public comments will be completed in January.
A powerful space-exploration facility in operation since the 1950s is under threat. Residents of the tiny West Virginia community in which it resides and its extended family of scientists and educators are rallying to save it.
Nestled in the hills in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, is the Green Bank Telescope. At 485 feet tall and about 300 feet across, it’s the largest fully-steerable telescope in the world, and it belongs to Green Bank Observatory.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A model radio telescope outside the Green Bank Observatory in Pocahontas County, W.Va.
Since the observatory opened in 1957, researchers have used the facility to make several discoveries, like organic prebiotic molecules — the building blocks of life. The Green Bank Telescope is also one of only two radio telescopes in the world searching for signs of intelligent life in space. But today, the telescope and the facility that supports it are under federal review — with the possibility of losing funding or being dismantled.
In the face of that threat, one West Virginia family hopes to convince the powers that be of the facility’s value to science, education and the small town in which the telescope resides.
“It’s almost like a tiny metropolitan city in the middle of rural West Virginia,” said Ellie White, a 16-year-old from Barboursville, West Virginia. “That kind of resource is invaluable for kids across the state and across the country, who are going to be tomorrow’s innovators, engineers, scientists, politicians, artists.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Josh (from left), Deana and Ellie White at a Green Bank Observatory conference room.
White’s family volunteered to start a campaign called “Go Green Bank Observatory” to rally support from across the country and show the National Science Foundation, which used to almost completely fund the observatory, that Green Bank Observatory is worth keeping. In 2012, the NSF published a portfolio review that recommended at least partially divesting from several observatories around the country that no longer have as large of a scientific impact as they used to. Green Bank Observatory was on that list.
Proposed operational changes for Green Bank Observatory range from continuing to partially fund its operations to shutting down its research operations and turning it into a technology park, or completely tearing it down.
“This is one of the difficult things the NSF has to do,” said Edward Ahjar, an astronomer at the NSF. “All of our facilities do great science, and that’s why we fund them. But when we start having less and less money to spread around, then we have to prioritize them. Which are doing the most important science now? Which are lower ranked?”
Credit Roxy Todd / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Edward Ahjar (center) listens to the public’s input during the second public scoping meeting held at Green Bank Observatory on Nov. 9, 2016.
The Fight to Keep Green Bank Observatory Open
Last fall, Go Green Bank Observatory encouraged fans to speak at two public scoping meetings where Ahjar and other representatives from the NSF would be present to hear the public’s input about the divestment process.
About 350 people filled the seats of an auditorium at the observatory. Several in attendance were affiliated with West Virginia University, which since 2006 has received more than $14.5 million in grant dollars for research related to the Green Bank Telescope.
“When I started applying for graduate school, WVU was one of my top choices,” said Kaustubh Rajwade, a graduate student from India in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at WVU. “The only reason I came here was so I could use the Green Bank Telescope.”
Others, like Buster Varner, a local fire chief, were more concerned about Green Bank Observatory’s role in the community as a de facto community center, where people can hold meetings and classes.
“Whenever we had a catastrophe, we can go to Mike,” Varner said, referring to Mike Holstine, the business manager at Green Bank Observatory. “I don’t know much about this science, and there’s a lot of people here who does and that’s great. But I do not want anything to happen to this facility, period.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Green Bank Observatory in Pocahontas County, W.Va.
The NSF once almost completely funded Green Bank Observatory’s operations. But Holstine said that especially in the past five years, the observatory saw a need to diversify its sources of funding — in part because outside organizations and researchers expressed a willingness to pay for time on the telescope, but also due to the clear indicators that the observatory needed to rely less on the NSF.
Green Bank Observatory employs between 100 and 140 people — more than half of whom are from Pocahontas County — depending on the time of year. The money also helps the observatory maintain its own infrastructure in an isolated and rural area.
“You kind of need to think of us as a town, a self-contained town,” Holstine explained. “We have our own roads. We have our own water system. We have our own wastewater system. We take care of our own buildings. We mow our own grass; we cut our own trees. We have to plow snow in the winter.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Green Bank Telescope at Green Bank Observatory is the largest fully-steerable telescope in the world.
A Future Without Green Bank Observatory
For White, the Observatory isn’t only worth keeping because of its accomplishments — but also because of its efforts to train the next generation of scientists. When she was younger, White was convinced she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. But since playing among the telescopes as a child, she has gone on to work on projects under the mentorship of astronomers and graduate students from all over the world.
She’s not the only teen who’s been impacted by the observatory’s work; through the Pulsar Search Collaboratory, more than 2,000 high school students have worked with the Green Bank Observatory through a partnership with West Virginia University since 2007.
“Just generally being here, you learn something every day. It’s like learning a new language through immersion,” White said.
The NSF will reach its decision about the Green Bank Observatory’s fate by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. At 16 years old, White hopes to get her doctorate in astrophysics and one day find full employment at the observatory. If it shuts down, White said, she might have to look for employment out of state.
Hundreds of individuals attended two public meetings held by the National Science Foundation at Green Bank Observatory. The NSF is considering operational changes for the observatory in light of budget constraints, including potentially shutting down the facility completely.
Members of the public included everyone from students from West Virginia University to residents of Pocahontas County. One by one they went to the podium and urged the NSF to avoid shutting down the facility comletely, citing the observatory’s importance to the local economy and community as well as to research and education.
“This is everybody’s money, and we’re known worldwide because of this telescope,” Buster Varner, the fire chief at Bartow-Frank-Durbin Volunteer Fire Department, told representatives of the NSF at the meeting. “I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. You need to look at something else to shut down. Because if this facility went out of there, this will be a ghost town.”
The NSF is considering divesting from various facilities around the country in order to allocate money for facilities that can do newer, cutting-edge research.
“There are difficult things the National Science Foundation has to do,” Edward Ahjar, an astronomist at the NSF who attended the meeting. “All of our facilities do great science, and that’s why we fund them. But when we start to have less and less money to spread around, then we have to prioritize them – which are doing the most important science now, and which are lower ranked.”
A final decision will be made by the end of next year.
West Virginia’s congressional delegation provided information Thursday on how the public can weigh in on the future of the Green Bank Observatory radio telescope in Pocahontas County.
The National Science Foundation will hold two public meetings on November 9th and accept written public comments until November 25th. The National Science Foundation is conducting a review of the observatory because of budget constraints.
The NSF is proposing different alternatives for the future of the facility that the public can comment on. Among those alternatives is collaborating with other parties in science and education so Green Bank can reduce its funding from the NSF.
Senator Joe Manchin said he hopes citizens turn out for the public meetings because of what the observatory means to the state.
“Our state takes enormous pride in the awe-inspiring scientific research performed at the observatory and I am doing everything in my power to protect and preserve the observatory for future generations,” Manchin said.
The NSF has also proposed mothballing of facilities or even deconstruction of the site. According to state officials, the roughly $8M that the NSF invests in the observatory generates nearly $30 million every year for the local economy.
Senator Shelley Moore Capito said she’s been fighting for a while to make sure Green Bank gets the funding it needs.
” I’ve been proud to support Green Bank Observatory and astronomy research through my position on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and I hope all West Virginians will join me in fighting for its future by attending a public meeting and submitting written comments,” Moore Capito said.
The public meetings November 9th will be at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., both at the Green Bank Science Center, in Pocahontas County.
For most college students, summer is the time to go home and relax from a year of hard work. But some students stayed in Morgantown to work on a unique project that brings the sciences and arts together.
Jessica Hoover created the Community Engaging in Science through Art program, also known as CESTA. She’s an assistant professor of chemistry at West Virginia University. Hoover came up with the idea to bring together students from the arts and sciences to create an installation that will live outside WVU’s Evansdale Campus Library, in Morgantown.
Six students from art, chemistry and engineering disciplines worked for a month to create, build and install the art piece.
“We selected students based on what we thought would be kind of the strength needed for this kind of program their ability to really collaborate and communicate well,” Hoover said. “And their ability to bring different disparate skill sets to the group.”
NSF-Funded Project
CESTA is a 4-year research program funded through the National Science Foundation with the intent of students improving the understanding and appreciation between chemists, engineers and artists.
Credit Aaliyah Brown / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
CESTA project participants work on the sculpture at WVU.
Students were intentionally given an idea that was logistically impossible to carry out. The challenge was to find a way to make it work. They decided to build a molecular sculpture that would represent the artistic side of chemistry.
Art student Ernie Williams worked on the project.
“The design is based off two different molecules, being glucose molecule and then a PTC,” he said. PTC stands for phenylthiocarbamide. “And the idea is that glucose represents the taste of sweetness and PTC is a molecule that tastes really bitter.”
Williams has an undergraduate degree from WVU and is now a graduate student at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville.
Students were able to apply online. The application was open to all college students, and only the strongest applicants were selected based on their ability to work as a team.
There’s also an augmented reality aspect to the art installation. Those who have an AR device will be able to see a virtual library of quotes, articles and anything that has to with the theme of bitter-sweet.
Great Start
This is the first year of the CESTA program and Jessica Hoover said she’s really pleased with the way it went.
“This group of students has been fantastic they have done more and better than we expected them to, because we gave them a very nebulous task,” she said.
Hoover said she hopes for the same results of perfection and diligence from the students during the next three years of the program.
“It’s really cool to see how those skill sets align really well with one another and how each component or each background of each of these students has been really integral to the project,” she said.
Each summer, six different students from the same disciplines will continue to create these science-art pieces of their own until the research grant has ended.
