OBAMA’S WAR ON COAL CAN BE STOPPED, NOT REVERSED, SAYS CEO OF COAL COMPANY

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Human Events:

The founder and CEO of the nation’s 12th largest coal producer told Human Events in an exclusive interview that President Barack Obama’s war on coal has done permanent damage to America’s competitiveness.

“It can be stopped, but it cannot be reversed,” said Robert E. Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, a privately-held coal producer based in Pepper Pike, Ohio.

Obama is planning to close 175 power plants by 2020, roughly equivalent to 83,000 megawatts, he said. Most of the plants will go off the grid by 2014.

The physical reality is that idle coals mine or coal-fired electric generating plant atrophy, he said.

“Those plants are not designed to remain idle,” he said. “The boilers and turbines are made to keep heat in them and they start deteriorating very rapidly.”

The same is also true for coal mines, he said.

“A coal mine is a living thing,” Murray said. “Once you stop the operation of a coal mine, they flood very quickly, and secondly, the roof conditions, even if you can keep it pumped out, slake.”

“The roof slakes, the roof spalls — these are mining terms,” he said. “As the moisture in the air goes underground from the hot air outside into the 58 degrees underground, the air currents just cut the roof down like a knife. The mine was a living thing. When it dies, you cannot bring it back.”

Romney understands that there is a whole segment of the American economy, and the American scheme of things, that is being destroyed, Murray said.