We are setting a new standard for coal ash management and implementing smart, sustainable solutions for all of our ash basins.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We don't want to leave the coal in the ground, and that necessarily is going to involve better technology with regard to clean uses of coal.
Over the long term, we should develop and implement new technologies to capture and store coal's carbon emissions. We also must make our electric grid more resilient.
If coal is going to be used, the only response - because it is the dirtiest of all fuels - is that we have to learn how to do carbon capture and storage and we have to learn how to do it quickly on a commercial scale.
You have to recognize what the markets are doing, what the rules and regulations are doing, and all the more reasons that we've got to find some more solutions in particular with coal.
Further, the United States is moving ahead in the development of clean coal technology. There are vast coal reserves in our country, and when it is burned cleanly, coal can provide a resource to supply a large amount of our energy requirements.
Coal is cheap, but up to what extent are we going to allow coal plants to operate?
It seems the EPA has worked hard to devise new regulations that are designed to eliminate coal mining, coal burning, usage of coal.
To shut off coal, or to say you can't have further coal development, I think is the wrong way to go.
If you want improvements in coal, you've got to keep people in the business.
The closing of ash basins is really part of decommissioning a coal plant.