As Canadians, we get under 17% of our electricity from burning coal. As engineers, we see coal-fired steam engines as an antiquated invention being phased out in favour of more viable energy sources. In the US, however, nearly half of their electricity still comes from coal-fired plants. For the people of the Appalachia, coal is more intimately connected still as the coal industry continues their long-dominance in the region, most recently with the practice of mountain-top removal mining. This method of mining involves blasting entire mountains from the top down to more easily access underlying coal-rich strata. The overburden is pulled into adjacent river valleys by 22-story tall machines called draglines during mining, and about a third is pulled back to the mountain site to partially restore the original shape after the mine closes. Because the US Clean Air Act requires coal to be washed to reduce associated SOx emissions, tailings are also retained on site behind earthen dykes. Currently, 3000 km of rivers have been filled with the overburden of the 180 000 hectares of mountains they have been mined. There has been widespread opposition to this type of mining, as it leaves vast tracts of the Appalachian mountains irreversibly altered, causes downstream environmental effects due to both contamination and disruption of ecosystems, all while doing an incomparable amount to improve the lives of the people who live and work in the region.
Although mountaintop removal is a new technology, the situation of environmental destruction and labour abuse has been the same in the region of hundreds of years. In 1921, this culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain, an armed standoff between over 10,000 miners with police, coal company-hired union-busters, and eventually the US army. Over a million rounds were fired, bombs were dropped, around 100 people died, and nearly 1000 were arrested. Although this was the largest armed conflict on US soil since the Civil War and an incredible story of resistance by common people, the conflict is glossed over in history books.
On October 26, an American art group called the Beehive Design Collective visited the University of Waterloo to present their newest poster entitled “The True Cost of Coal”. The poster is a culmination of two years of research, a long drafting and reviewing cycle, and the combined effort of eleven artists working at once. The massive scene (about 2 metres high and 5 metres long) chronicles the history of coal production in Appalachia from early colonization and toward possible futures, looking from immediate realities to underlying systems and incorporating aspects of society, economy, and environment. Beehive Design travels around North America to share its posters, which are meant to use art as a way to break down the disconnection between people and the realities of the world around them.
Although the poster features feats of mechanical, electrical, geological, and chemical engineering worthy of “Big Things with Will Zochodne”, it brings into question the role that engineers played at the time of the events portrayed and should be playing going into the future. Engineers do not orchestrate the economic, political, and legal systems that determine which industries will be profitable and which people will benefit from them, but we do enable their development. When talking with friends deciding whether to work for companies with records of environmental and social destruction, a common argument is “If I’m not working there, someone worse will be”. While this may be true on the individual level, as a profession, engineers have a lot more say. As the people who work hard to develop the best technology possible, we do a great job of facilitating project implementation that makes it possible for society to benefit, and for governments and private companies to become rich and powerful. Whether we decide to look through the PR strategies of industry, become educated on true costs, and advocate for technological (or other) solutions beneficial to society, or simply be pawns allowing the plans of others to pan out is a decision that is up to each of us as free agents and all of us as a profession.
For those wishing to learn more about mountain-top removal mining, alternative energy sources and socioeconomic structures, or to obtain a copy of “The True Cost of Coal” poster, Beehive offers access to copyright-free graphics and other materials at their website; beehivecollective.org.
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