(Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 23, 2012)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — What no one on the Republican side dares say to the miners or their bosses is that the real war on coal isn’t being masterminded by the White House or the EPA. Nor is it emanating from the Sierra Club and other green groups that loathe coal. They don’t have the clout.
The danger to coal’s present and future comes from America’s — and Ohio’s — recently unleashed oceans of natural gas. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that coal is producing 18 percent less electricity than last year. Natural gas is generating 30 percent more. Coal’s not vanishing — there’s still a huge foreign market and it’s needed to make steel — but its role in domestic energy production is changing.
Full story: Cleveland Plain Dealer