Editorial | Miners' Plight Prompts Discussion

Coal mining has been on a lot of Americans' minds for more than a week.

They have been keeping a CNN vigil, along with the families of six coal miners trapped 1,800 feet beneath the earth in Utah's Crandall Canyon Mine in an Aug. 6 cave-in.

Will it end in the miraculous rescue of Quecreek or the sorrowful recovery of Sago?

Then Friday, a construction accident took three lives at coal mine near Princeton, Ind.

No question about it, mining is a dangerous profession.

Crandall Canyon mine owner Robert E. Murray, a fourth-generation miner, has revealed his own scars. In interviews, he told of his father's paralysis in a mine accident when he was a boy. But last Tuesday, Murray upset families and mineworkers by turning a rescue-effort news conference into a political soapbox.

"Without the coal industry to manufacture our electricity, our products will not compete in the global marketplace against foreign countries," he said. "People on fixed incomes will not be able to pay their electric bills."

Murray, who once called Al Gore "the shaman of global goofiness," went on to predict the demise of the coal industry if Congress passed any legislation related to global warming.

It wasn't the time or the place for such lobbying, especially for Murray, a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill. But he is right that America faces hard choices about the future of coal, so abundant but so environmentally troublesome.

Congress wisely beat back a proposal to convert coal to liquid fuel to power cars, trucks and airplanes. That process makes little sense from an energy or pollution standpoint. Pennsylvania should do the same this fall, as a biofuels proposal reemerges.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration will investigate what triggered the accident at Crandall Canyon, just as it did in Sago and Quecreek. Answers may lead to more safety improvements, but communication and tracking equipment reforms instituted after Sago had not all taken effect.

It is a blessing that mine deaths in the United States are rare, contrasted to those in countries like China, where 1,792 workers have died so far this year, according to government figures. Chinese labor leaders put fatalities much higher - up to 20,000 in 2006, instead of the official government tally of 4,746 last year.

China's scramble for coal and the continuing quest in the United States reflect the rising worldwide demand for fuel to generate electricity. Coal fires about half of U.S. power plants. It's the cheapest fuel, but the dirtiest in terms of air pollution, and one of the most damaging to extract from the land. Scientists say burning coal also contributes to global warming.

For coal to remain a viable electricity source, science must advance on the storage and sequestration of planet-warming carbon-dioxide emissions, which could still be years away.

Transition to new fuels will take time, money and American ingenuity. Plus the same kind of commitment, determination and courage it takes to mine coal.