GLOBAL CLIMATE DEBATE

[McGINNIS] Hello, and welcome to "Clean Skies Sunday," a weekly half-hour look at energy issues facing Washington and America.  I'm Susan McGinnis.  This week, as families mourn, investigators look at the cause of a deadly explosion at a West Virginia mine.  We talk about Massey Energy's record of citations and violations at the mine and what risks workers take in all energy sectors to provide power to the country.  Plus, the Army Corps of Engineers is racing against the clock to find a way to get the people of Atlanta drinking water without harming two neighboring states.  And he says it's not a global warming film but a global warming solutions film.  We talk with Peter Byck, producer and director of "Carbon Nation."  We begin in West Virginia, in Montcoal, where more than two dozen miners died in an explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine.  Crews spent days drilling holes into the mine, hoping to vent enough toxic gas so search teams could remove bodies and possibly find survivors.  Every day, more than 100,000 men and women mine the coal in this country.  Until this tragedy, there had been only two mining fatalities for the year, according to the Labor Department.  As Lee Patrick Sullivan reports, workers put their lives on the line daily to provide electricity to the country.
[SULLIVAN] When Jenny Waycaster headed to the Upper Big Branch Mine, she didn't know what she would do when she got there.  She just knew that there was an explosion and her son Kevin had just started his shift at the mine.
[WAYCASTER] My heart was about to beat out of me.  I was praying the whole way, "God, keep him safe."

[SULLIVAN] When she arrived, there were rows of rescue vehicles but little information on the fate of her son or the other miners.  Waycaster and other family members were taken to a command center, where for hours they waited for some word from the owners of the mine, Massey Energy.

[WAYCASTER] They said they were sending a list.  We didn't know what kind of list.  Everybody was wondering what the list was, you know.  A list of who was alive, who was not alive?

[SULLIVAN] The news that was starting to filter out was one of a massive explosion.
[GOVERNOR JOE MANCHIN, (D) WEST VIRGINIA] Rails that cars, buggies, and heavy equipment, train rails that go back in, look like they've been twisted like a pretzel.
[SULLIVAN] More than two dozen miners killed, the deadliest mining accident in decades and a stark reminder of the dangers associated with coal mining.
[REPRESENTATIVE NICK RAHALL, (D) WEST VIRGINIA] These men and women go beneath the soil and toil with their blood, sweat, and tears for the energy that fuels this nation.
[SULLIVAN] This coal mine is one of Massey Energy's largest, and inspectors say it was known as a "gassy" mine, releasing large amounts of methane gas every day, and the mine had more than its fair share of safety violations.  According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, this mine produced 1 1/2 million cubic feet of methane gas every 24 hours.  Any number larger than 1 million requires special monitoring.  So far this year, the mine had 124 safety violations and a large number of "D" orders, meaning the operator knew of the violation.  Tim Bailey is a lawyer representing the families of miners, and he said this mine was an accident waiting to happen.

[BAILEY] Well, if you have a gassy mine, and you have a history of violations of your ventilation plan, your dust control measures, then, I guess, in some ways, it wouldn't surprise you there'd be an explosion.

[SULLIVAN] In the wake of the Aracoma and Sago mine disasters, Congress passed new legislation in 2006, which aimed to increase the safety of coal mines by providing refuge chambers, portable oxygen packs, and better communications.  The fines for violations were also increased, but shutting down a mine still requires a long legal battle.

[KEVIN STRICKLAND, MINE HEALTH AND SAFETY ADMINISTRATION] And he gets his opportunity to go to court and basically challenge any violation that has been issued by one of my inspectors.

[SULLIVAN] And when companies do get fined, critics say the penalties are not large enough.  Massey Energy had more than 500 violations at its mines in 2009, and was fined $168,000, or about what the company makes in an hour.  Still, Massey's CEO defended his company's safety record this week and its procedures when it comes to updating family members about the fate of their loved ones.

[DON BLANKENSHIP, CEO, MASSEY ENERGY] You know, it's an accident, we're very sorry, and the guys that work at the mine and the supervisors, everybody did what they know to do, and I'm sure the agencies have as well, and whatever happened, and we don't know what that is, but we certainly are sorry about it and we'll be working diligently going forward to try to keep it from happening again.

[SULLIVAN] As for Jenny Waycaster, after waiting more than 7 hours for a list, it was a family friend, not Massey Energy, who told her about the fate of her son.  The friend handed her a phone.  On the other end, her son Kevin.  He missed being near the center of the explosion by mere minutes.
[WAYCASTER] Um, I just said, "Kevin..."  And he said, "Mom," and we both start crying.  And I told him I loved him.

[SULLIVAN] Governor Manchin says that once the investigation is over and the reports are on his desk, he will hold a public hearing to find out exactly what went wrong here and who is responsible.  In Raleigh County, West Virginia, Lee Patrick Sullivan, Clean Skies News.

[McGINNIS] Joining us now is Kathy Snyder.  She's the Washington based correspondent for Mine Safety and Health News and worked for the Mine Safety and Health Administration's press office for 26 years.  Kathy, thanks for coming in.  A lot of attention has turn to Massey's safety record and violations that it's accumulated, more than 500, one of the numbers thrown out, over the past year.  Can you put this in perspective for us?  How serious is that number of violations compared with other big coal companies?  Do they commonly amass this number of violations?

[SNYDER] Well, looking at this particular mine, it's not unusual for mines to have violations, some large mines to have quite a few.  500 is on the large side.  I also look at the seriousness in nature of the violations.  At this particular mine, there were 50 violations last year that the mine agency rated as unwarrantable failures.  That means the highest possible degree of negligence -- violations for which there's really no excuse for them happening.  50 unwarrantable failures in a year, in my experience, is unusually high.

[McGINNIS] And these more serious violations, do they include what might have happened here, the ventilation problem?

[SNYDER] Some of these violations did involve ventilation.  None of them caused this particular explosion, because I believe all of them were fixed.  All of the violations that were cited were fixed and corrected.  All we have in the mine's past record is a snapshot of the past.  We don't know what happened on the day of the accident.

[McGINNIS] So not uncommon for large mines, large coal companies to accumulate large numbers of violations.  How uncommon is it for them to contest them as Massey also does?

[SNYDER] It's actually quite common for coal companies to contest violations, and it's also true that a mine operator has to fix, correct that violation, that hazard before they even contest the violation.  There's no question that they have to do whatever the inspector decides is necessary to correct the hazard.

[McGINNIS] Would you say that it is true that the overall trend is that mines have become safer?
[SNYDER] Definitely, that is the case.  Last year, coal mine fatalities numbered 18, which was the lowest number in the coal industry in the history of the United States since statistics have been kept.

[McGINNIS] And you're talking also about this 2006 miner law?

[SNYDER] The miner law definitely strengthened the Federal Mine Safety Law that existed since 1970 covering coal mines.  And in particular, that law looked at two areas of safety.  One was the sealing off of abandoned areas in coal mines where methane can accumulate.

[McGINNIS] I want you to listen to a sound bite from CEO Don Blankenship that he made when speaking in a debate in West Virginia recently about mountaintop removal coal mining, and I want to get your reaction.

[BLANKENSHIP] We are greatly reducing the violation numbers now that we've been told that they need to be addressed.  But the thing about this industry is it improves every year, only for the hurdle to be made higher.  We're doing everything we can to comply with a different law every day.
[SNYDER] It is true that safety enforcement has become stronger over the years, and it's also true that mine fatalities and injuries have plummeted to the lowest levels in history, which, again, is why it's so shocking that we have an accident of this magnitude now.  Something like this has not been seen in more than 25 years.

[McGINNIS] Here's what else Blankenship said...  "In many cases the safety enforcement [of mines] is unreasonable and it's causing this country to be non-competitive and it's costing us our jobs."  Now, this was certainly made outside the context of an explosion, but what's your reaction to that one?

[SNYDER] I think that MSHA has agreed that there is a need for its inspectors to have more training and better training.  It's a continual process.  When I worked at MSHA, that was the case there also.  They were continually trying to upgrade the training of their inspectors and make them more consistent in their enforcement.

[McGINNIS] But he's already calling it "unreasonable."

[SNYDER] In terms of the strength of enforcement, I think that there's a definite payoff in the strengthening of enforcement provisions over the decades.  And it's as a result of that that we have seen fatalities and injuries dropping to the lowest levels in history.  It is certainly true that it has become progressively more stringent, and it is often in the wake of a serious accident such as this that new legislation and new regulations have come along to try and prevent the next incident.

[McGINNIS] Kathy Snyder, Mine Safety and Health News, thank you so much for coming in.  And still to come, part three of our Water Wars series.  Three states battle it out over dwindling water resources.  And later, the faces behind the push for a low carbon economy.  We talk to a filmmaker who saw firsthand how everyday Americans are making a difference in the way we use energy.

[BREAK]  
"Tomorrow" may be the most destructive word in our vocabulary.  Tomorrow I'll spend more time with my family.  I'll clean out the closets.  I'll recycle.  I'll donate to charity.  Tomorrow.  I'll walk instead of driving a few blocks, tomorrow.  It's easy to look at these skies that seem to go on forever and say, tomorrow we can think about clearing the air.  We can wait until tomorrow when someone else takes the first step, when our leaders come up with solutions, when someone invents the technology that will make everything easier.  I think the time is right today, so we can hang on to this tomorrow.
[END BREAK]  
[McGINNIS] Welcome back to "Clean Skies Sunday."  Despite recurrent mining tragedies, experts agree that coal use will not stop anytime soon.  At the Energy Information Administration's annual conference in Washington this past week, public and private forecasters agreed on that but see low-carbon technologies as having very different future effects.  Our executive editor, Margaret Ryan, has more.

[RYAN] The EIA Conference is an annual chance for experts to compare notes and debate assumptions, and this year was no exception.  Overall, the forecasters seem to agree -- look out 20 or 25 years, we'll be getting more of our electricity from natural gas, from renewables and nuclear, and less from coal, but coal will still be there.

[ JOHN CONTI, ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION] We need about 250 gigawatts over this whole projection period, out through 2035, and we think most of that is going to be met through a combination of natural gas and renewables.  There are some coal additions, some that are planned and underway currently today, but by the end of the forecast, without a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade or any other proposals we've heard about today, we do expect coal to be a competitive choice once again.

[RYAN] But what if you do add carbon restrictions?  Can carbon capture and sequestration keep coal in the mix?  Energy Secretary Steven Chu says yes.  He says the U.S. has a quarter of the world's proven coal reserves and he believes it can be used cleanly.

[CHU] We are investing significant amounts of money -- $4 billion in clean coal technologies -- and also investigating sequestration.  And the good news is it's being matched by $7 billion in the U.S. from private industry.

[RYAN] But analysis from oil giant ExxonMobil says CCS development will actually give more long-term advantage to natural gas.

[TOM EIZEMBER, ExxonMobil] It's an interesting thing that most people don't realize is that gas with CCS is actually a cheaper source of power than coal with CCS -- which is inconsistent with the discussion of clean coal on one hand that gas is a transition fuel on the other.

[RYAN] EIA analysts disagreed, saying coal's initial low cost will keep it competitive.
[CONTI] We think you build less natural gas, because, unlike what Tom alluded to earlier, we think that coal with carbon capture and storage in a carbon-constrained world is relatively cheaper than natural gas with carbon capture and storage, basically, because the fuel cost is so much lower for coal.
[RYAN] And Philippe Joubert, with CCS developer Alstom, says, so far, CCS for natural gas actually costs more.

[JOUBERT] Gas is producing half of the emission of carbon of coal plants compared with the same kilowatts.  But in reality, these emissions are much more dispersed in a bigger volume, so they are more expensive and more complicated to capture.

[RYAN] So, while environmentalists expect renewables to displace fossil fuels, energy analysts say, renewables will still be a small part of the mix.  They say the real battle for market share will be between coal and natural gas, even with a price on carbon.  In Washington, Margaret Ryan, Clean Skies News.
[McGINNIS] For two weeks, we've told you about one of the worst droughts to hit the Southeast.  It's wreaked environmental havoc on Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, threatened the water supply to metro Atlanta, and now the states face a court deadline.  In our final installment, Shawn Shepard looks at the problems facing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as it tries to solve the water supply problem for a growing population, keep water flowing for environmental habitats, and power energy plants.

[SHEPARD] The Atlanta metro area is made up of 15 counties with more than 90 municipalities.  According to Census reports, Georgia's population grew from 6.4 million in 1990 to 9.6 million in 2008.  That's almost a 50% increase.  During the same period, Atlanta metro's population grew by 76%, from 2.8 million to 4.9 million.  More people mean more homes, more businesses, more shopping malls, more schools, and more hookups to municipal water systems.  That led Atlanta to prevail on the Corps of Engineers for water from Lake Lanier.

[GIL ROGERS, SENIOR ATTORNEY, SELC] Alabama's position, which I heard them state very recently, is that metro Atlanta has followed a very irresponsible pattern of growth over the past 30 years, and because of that, they have not managed their water resources very well.

[CHICK KRAUTLER, DIRECTOR, ATLANTA REGIONAL COMMISSION] We were operating in a fashion that we thought was agreeable, was clearly agreeable to the Corps, and we assumed that the Corps understood what its own abilities are.
[SHEPARD] In 1997, Congress authorized the ACF Compact.  That gave the three governors of the three states six years to come up with a water-sharing agreement.  When the compact expired in 2003, no agreement had been reached.  However, one was reached between Georgia and the Corps to let the state use 22% of the lake's capacity for drinking water.  Alabama immediately sued to block the deal.

[KRAUTLER] Then we had a drought, and it was the worst drought in the history of the Southeast.
[SHEPARD] An intense drought gripped the Southeast from 2007 to early 2009.  Corn and cotton crops were especially hit hard in Alabama.  The state of Florida was plagued by constant wildfires, dried lake and riverbeds.  And 55 north Georgia counties went under a level four drought response, which restricts almost all outdoor water use.  Things became so dire that Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue called on state leaders and residents alike to send prayers up to the Almighty in hopes that heaven would pour down a blessing in the form of rain.

[KRAUTLER] Prior to the beginning of the drought, the Corps put in place what they called an interim operating plan.

[SHEPARD] The interim operation plan Krautler is referring points to a 2006 decision by the Army Corps of Engineers on how to operate Buford Dam.  The plan had two principal purposes -- to provide suitable conditions for the spawning of Gulf sturgeon and to provide adequate flow for other endangered species.  Problems arose, however, due to the high level of constant flow required by the plan.  There was also the accidental release of some 22 billion extra gallons of water downstream.  The Corps blamed this on a faulty gauge used to measure water level.

[KRAUTLER] And you put all those things together, and that's really what led to Lake Lanier dropping so dramatically.

[SHEPARD] Mother Nature was kind to the Southeast in 2009.  Drenching rains soaked dry, cracked land, replenishing Lake Lanier to standard operating levels and cooling the heated debate over water -- somewhat.

[SALLY BETHEA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UCR] We have got to make changes here in metro Atlanta and in north Georgia.  We can't just wait until we have another crisis of the same magnitude.

[SHEPARD] A state-wide Water Management Plan went into effect in 2008, and Georgia's Environmental Protection Division released the Water Conservation Implementation Plan.  But there are questions as to the overall effectiveness of these initiatives.
[ROGERS] I think we need something stronger, something a little bit more binding.

[SHEPARD] In the meantime, what can Georgians expect to see in the near future?
[KRAUTLER] Higher rates for water.  Water has been, for many years, an underpriced commodity.
[SHEPARD] And with the clock ticking toward the court's 2012 deadline, what's a state to do?
[CRAIG PENDERGRAST] Georgia's options are to try to reach consensus with the other states.  Failing that, to convince enough members of Congress that the act needs to be amended to expressly provide for water supply from Lake Lanier as one of its purposes.

[BETHEA] There will be some areas such as Gwinnett County that will not have any water available and there will be other areas where there will be stringent water rationing.  We can't handle that kind of an impact to the prosperity of our region.
[KRAUTLER] You can't turn off the water supply for 2 million people in the largest metropolitan area in the Southeast.  So, something's got to give between now and 2012.

[SHEPARD] And things appear to be giving way in the form of talks between the opposing parties.  On December 15, 2009, Alabama Governor Bob Riley, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, and Florida Governor Charlie Crist all met to discuss plans on reaching a water sharing agreement.  However, no details were revealed.  And with all three governors coming up on the end of their terms in office, time is of the essence.  In Atlanta, Shawn Shepard, Clean Skies News.

[McGINNIS] And the battle between the states shows no sign of being resolved anytime soon.  Just last week, lawyers for the state of Georgia asked a federal appeals panel to overturn Judge Magnuson's ruling, saying that it will be devastating to three million residents who have no meaningful alternative source of water.  Clean Skies News will continue to follow this story as it develops.  And when we come back, the ways we create and consume energy make us a "carbon nation," but change is coming, fueled by CEOs and farmers alike.  We talk to the man behind a new documentary discussing the solutions to the problems caused by climate change.

[BREAK]  
Do you ever gaze into the sky and wonder if it looks the same as when people thousands of years ago looked to the heavens?  Not just wondering if ancient people recognized the sun and stars and clouds for what they are -- we know they didn't -- but wondering if in that same spot where you are standing today, did some primitive nomadic hunter look up at a sky that was bluer and clearer and more brilliant than what you see?  We know mankind's footprint has changed the land in ways that would make it unrecognizable to primitive man.  But what have we done to the untouchable, limitless sky?  Maybe the more important question is, what will the sky look like in only a hundred more years?  The vast open sky has inspired poets and storytellers, explorers and astronauts.  Adventurous spirits try to tap its power, knowing they can never tame it.  Its promises have called and cradled fledgling wings, its breezes speak to all wild creatures.  A boundaryless blue, it lifts our imagination.  It demands our respect.

[END BREAK]
[McGINNIS] Welcome back.  From titans of industry to everyday Americans, folks across the nation are working to change energy -- the way we produce it, the way we get it, the way we use it.  Now a new film called "Carbon Nation" sets out to find them and tell their story.  Tyler Suiters talked with the producer and director.

[SUITERS] Thank you, Susan.  Peter Byck is producer and director of "Carbon Nation."  Peter, it's great to have you with us.

[BYCK] Thank you.  It's good to be here.

[SUITERS] I'd like to start off with a quote that you issued about this film itself, it's very simple but it's also telling.  "We're not making a global warming film.  We're making a global warming solutions film."  There was very much a difference here.

[BYCK] I think that Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore made the perfect global warming "there's a problem" film.  It was a -- it got my attention.  And so we made this film to go towards the solutions.  And with no blame, no shame, moving forward, what's out there right now that's working, what could be working, what do we need to be doing?  And so, we didn't know if that stuff existed when we started the film three years ago.  We hoped it did, and believe me, when you're making a film like this and you're delving into this deep a subject matter and this heavy a subject matter, there's many days of depression, when you're finding out how many, if we went nuclear, how many nuclear plants would have to be built over the next three decades -- one a week.
[SUITERS] Depressing or sobering, one of the two.

[BYCK] Both, really intense, and our first editor, Eric Driscoll, he almost left the film, it was almost too heavy, until we started getting the solutions footage in, then he was like, "Okay, cool."  Like Bernie Karl in Alaska, the crazy geothermal man.

[SUITERS] "Crazy" applies to several characters you ran across.  And I like the juxtaposition you have between what you call ordinary Americans and also some of the power brokers, and we meet George Bravos, who's a long-haul trucker who uses battery power to heat and cool his cab.  My favorite, though, is the one-armed Texas wind farmer Cliff Etheredge, a guy who's a former cotton farmer, who sees real opportunity in the wind sector.
[BYCK] Yeah, Cliff -- my wife, Chrisna, one of the producers, she found Cliff.  And I heard there was wind going up in West Texas, and we were in El Paso for another story, and I said, "Find somebody, 'cause we'll be in West Texas."  That's when I learned that West Texas was actually from Dallas to El Paso.  So we had a heck of a drive to get to Cliff that day.  But Cliff, he saw these wind farms going up on giant ranches near him, he could see it from his house, but his area was a bunch of really small farms, and so he gathered 400 people, did all the legal work, to get them as one unit, and got E.ON Energy in to build the wind farm.  So he actually created the world's largest wind farm.  This one cotton farmer with one arm.  And he's a real character.  I think he'll actually do more for this movement than just about anybody else.

[SUITERS] You also, Peter, though, talked to the leaders of Duke Energy, Jim Rogers, of Exelon, John Rowe, Sir Richard Branson, from the Virgin empire, and simply because these are power brokers.  These are decision makers, but they can be, on many occasions, far removed from what you call the front lines.
[BYCK] Yeah, no, they absolutely can.  But I learned specific things.  I learned about energy efficiency from both Rowe and from Jim Rogers.  The very first conference we were filming at was an ACEEE conference, and John Rowe was talking about wanting to get low-income housing better, to make them more energy efficient, because it's just all this waste.  And it would create jobs, and I was just blown away that this titan was talking about something that down to earth, and Jim Rogers also was talking about, you know, if you save energy, that's much cheaper than building another power plant.  So I was learning a lot of stuff from these guys.  You know, they're big guys and they've got their stockholders and things like that, but they're cutting-edge people.  And Branson, he's just his own guy.  But he didn't know about climate change.  He said that, in the interview we had with him, he said Al Gore came to his house and gave him the pitch.  And the light bulb went on, and he got it.

[SUITERS] Peter, final question, from an environmental film festival, I think that you as a viewer expect a big push for renewable energy -- solar, geothermal, wind -- and those elements are certainly in your film.  But you also take a hard look at the traditional sources -- the fossil fuels, as well as nuclear energy.

[BYCK] Well, basically, you know, the clean coal movement is an advertising campaign.  Coal is a dirty fuel, and that's what we discovered in our film, and there's really interesting statistics about that.  But also getting coal is very dirty.  I live in Kentucky.  And mountaintop removal is a tough thing right now.  But coal's perfect because it's so frickin' packed with energy.  We wouldn't be here, we wouldn't have any of this equipment if it wasn't for coal, so we certainly built an amazing society on coal, but there's got to be a way to do it better now, and I think the best thing to do is, we can make things so much more efficient so we won't need as much coal.  Now, they're working on carbon sequestration, carbon capture and sequestration.  It's far off.  And I don't know if it's going to work, because it's so much carbon that has to be sequestered.  I love the idea of concrete that sequesters carbon.  We interviewed some people -- it will be on our Web site -- that are using carbon as a feedstock for plastic.  So that's cool.  With nuclear, we're still trying to figure it out.  As a film team.  We say in the film that, you know, there's the positive side of nuclear, which is enormous amount of energy.  The negative side is the proliferation potential of the waste, and no one knows what to do with the waste.  Even France with 70% nuclear power and Japan with 90%, they still don't know what to do with the waste, they just shift it around a lot.  And that's really the trick, but you hear things about people are learning how to reuse the waste, so it's just, we're pretty smart people.  If we can just get smarter, I think it will be a much better situation.
[SUITERS] Peter Byck is co-producer and the director of "Carbon Nation," debuting here at the D.C.  Environmental Film Festival.  Peter, it's great to have you with us.  The next stop, Susan, is in Peter's hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, sometime next month.  Back to you.
[McGINNIS] And that does it for us for this edition of "Clean Skies Sunday."  I'm Susan McGinnis.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend.  We'll see you right here next Sunday morning, and until then, we'll see you at CleanSkies.com.  Also, don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  Have a great day.   

[END SHOW]