Peabody claims Prairie State’s environmental impact on the surrounding area will be minimal. “There have been a couple permitting challenges to the project that Prairie State has successfully won, like from the Sierra Club,” said Christopher Smith, a representative for the company. “Peabody went through the Illinois EPA, which did extensive studies on the environmental impact. Peabody did not do anything separate than what was required by the state and local government, but it got all the required permits.”

But Murphy believes that the consequences may be disastrous for his farm and his family, and he is fighting the project. The mine that feeds the plant is most worrying. “I don’t own the coal rights under my farm,” he explained. Mineral rights belong to the owner of the land above, but they can be sold off, as they have been in much of Illinois. Peabody would not confirm how large the mine would be, but it may extend even beyond Marissa.

“I’m concerned because they’re probably going to mine under my farm,” said Murphy, “but they’re not just going to take the coal, they’re going to take the water table. I’m concerned that I’m not going to have the water resources anymore—and if I am, that they’re going to be contaminated.” Mines often destroy water tables near them, for they use the water to wash the coal, meanwhile mixing in natural toxins. Such damage would ruin local farms.

The main problem for Marissa’s residents is not the power plant, whose emissions will disperse over the area and into the atmosphere. Instead, local destruction will come from the mine that will feed the plant. When Prairie State begins operation, it will bring long-desired jobs to the struggling town, but at a high cost to the same population. The environmental effects will have immediate—and potentially disastrous—consequences for locals. As clean as coal will ever be, coal mining will never be harmless.

Beyond Power Plants

Where out-of-work miners still search for jobs, the consequences of coal mining and burning are easily pushed aside by the effects of unemployment, at least in the short term. The important fact is the lasting one: underneath the United States sits onequarter of the world’s coal. The United States has the largest coal reserves of any country and more energy in coal than the Middle East has in oil. Those in coal country have only one question: how else can we sell our coal?

Bill Hoback has ideas about an old technology: cold-to-liquids. “Now we’re looking at beyond just electricity. Substitute natural gas, fertilizer, all these things we’re now becoming more and more dependent on. We’re looking around, saying, ‘Coal can pick up a lot of this.’”

Coal-to-liquid technology dates to the first half of the twentieth century and has been used in several countries to create relatively small amounts of liquid fuel, usually diesel. The American coal industry and coal-rich states are hopping at the prospect of mass-scale liquefaction (also called gasification), which could turn coal into oil and synthetic natural gas to power cars and heat homes.

“Gasification’s not a new technology,” Phil Gonet explained. “But it’s never been done in this country and on a large-scale commercial development. That’s what investors are looking at.”

In Illinois, Governor Rod Blagojevich and Senator Barack Obama have come out in favor of expanding the technology, as have politicians in other states with large coal industries. The coal companies themselves are eager, too.

If coal can ensure our energy security, why not develop the technology? For now, economic limitations stand in the way and investors are hard to find, although, unlike carbon capture, the technology is already here. “Investors are skittish because of the volatility of oil prices,” said Gonet. “They think once we start building these gasification plants and we start producing our own fuel from coal, OPEC will cut the price and they’ll be at a loss.”

Illinois coal must wait. With politicians in both parties supporting gasification, the wait may not be long. If significant investment in gasification does come, investment will quickly flow back into Illinois again to mine newly demanded coal.

Coal is Still King

Illinois coal is not typical American coal; in fact, the two have run counter to each other. While Illinois coal has suffered, American coal has prospered. Since 1970, coal production in Illinois has been cut by more than half; over the same period, the amount of coal produced for power across the country has tripled. That difference has been covered by a boom in production in the Mountain West, where massive machines carve into huge coal seams, tearing off veins of coal ten times as thick as those back east.

Since coal is of no use to anyone until it is mined, those in coal country are always trying to mine their coal as quickly as possible. In West Virginia, where coal mining has dominated the state economy for nearly 200 years, the natural landscape has substantially changed. The state now suffers from heavy levels of pollution and high incidences of flooding, and is by several measures the poorest in the nation. Yet coal mining continues.

Across coal country, mining provides jobs and little else. It brings no stability to mining communities, and it often forestalls the establishment of healthy economies. But the urge to mine only grows, thanks to a promise of progress that is yet to come.

With large-scale gasification yet unrealized, coal remains the power source it has always been. Coal-fired power plants provide nearly half of the electricity generated in the United States. Natural gas and nuclear power each generate another 20 percent, and renewable energy sources account for only about eight percent. Coal is by far the cheapest source. And it will remain so until it begins to run out, a century or two from now. Until then, coal will continue to power the country.

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