In 2008, PBS Frontline a documentary, Heat: A Global Investigation, showed how oil, gas, and electric utilities have resisted reducing their carbon dioxide emissions in America and globally. According Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corporation, one of the largest US coal mines operators, “Our electric needs in this country, according to the federal government, are going to increase 41% between now and 2020. If the coal industry was eliminated and the 52% of the electricity it provided, this country would go black.”

Michael G Morris, CEO of American Electric Power, believes that America must even burn more coal, not less to meet our basic electric needs. He argues in the same PBS documentary that if we do not burn more coal while the U.S. economy continues to grow, then “we will ultimately get to an economic brown out environment that will have negative impact (on America).”

The issue is that the American energy CEOs sees coal as the only viable answer to America’s energy needs. Is burning coal really the only answer to obtaining energy to turn on the lights?

According to Dr. Richard Alley, a geologist at Penn State University who used to work for an oil company begs to differ from the big coal CEOs. He recently hosted a PBS documentary, called Earth: The Operators Manual. He states that humans currently use 15.7 billion watts of energy to power lives. Currently in the world, fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas provide close to 80% of this power. He calculates we could obtain 173 billion watts from solar energy, biomass from agricultural waste could provide 166 billion watts, geothermal energy could provide 44 billion watts, wind energy could provide 78 watts, and energy efficient could cut the demand for energy by 5.2 billion watts.

Even more, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Burning coal is a leading cause of smog, acid rain, global warming, and air toxics” in the world. It is a very dirty fuel. We burn it because it is a cheap source of energy.  However, for our kids, it is healthier to use cleaner sources, like solar, wind, geothermal.