What has River Hill Coal Been Doing Lately to Help the Environment?

It is hard to think of an industry with a worse reputation than coal mining. Years of environmental neglect, among other sins, have left permanent scars on the earth’s surface and, particularly, in the minds of many Americans. Even though times have changed and the government regulates our industry to an extreme degree now, we nevertheless continue to suffer from the poor image that our forebears created.

At first glance from a casual observer, it would make sense to just get rid of the coal mining industry and leave the bad memories in the past. This seems to be the attitude of many in Washington and we can certainly understand their position. Unfortunately, it is not just the economics that makes the removal of the coal industry impossible; the scientific realities of physics prevent the energy industry from becoming independent of coal. The world simply cannot support human life at its current population without our industry. To make matters even more challenging, the Department of Energy’s U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that the world will consume 49% more coal by 2030.

At our company, River Hill Coal, we are trying to reverse this trend by achieving a middle ground where coal companies can minimize the impact they make on the earth by becoming more efficient while simultaneously enhancing their revenue. This shift in our business approach can transform our industry into better stewards of the environment, thereby bringing us more in harmony with the earth.

The coal mining industry has been paying lip service to this goal for a while, now it is time to act. Government subsidies and grants are useful to do the basic research that is necessary to prepare green products for market, but we have been stuck in the research and development stage for too long. What the industry requires now is the active implementation of already existing green technologies and the only way companies will support implementation of these technologies is if they have some impact on the bottom line.

Our company’s approach to introducing profitable green technologies to the coal industry has been two fold. First, we have been implementing carbon reducing technologies with the company GTECH (Growth Through Energy and Community Health). We are growing bio-fuel on our reclamation sites to offset the carbon dioxide we release from our coal that is used in steel making and electricity producing processes. Second, with the aid of the companies like Optimus Technologies and Fossil Free Fuels we consume the bio-fuel in a fashion that reduces our costs and brings price stability while enhancing our revenues from our coal production. We then coordinate these two efforts with the help of Idea Foundry, a company that provides seed money to entrepreneurs who run these companies. We feel that this balanced approach to carbon reduction and enhanced environmental protection is the only feasible way to properly develop and manage the “Green Economy” and are the best first steps on the road to coal independence.