The Southern States Energy Board’s Committee on Clean Coal and Energy Technologies Collaboration is one of the Board’s most active government/industry partnerships. Comprised of state, federal, academic, business and industry officials, the Committee pursues domestic and international programs that are intended to increase the use of coal and promotes innovative technologies that power cleaner fossil fuel systems.

During the past year, the Committee’s domestic agenda focused on the education of the coal workforce of the future. The importance of coal as a resource for the southern region is apparent. For every million tons of coal produced, 130 miners are employed. Millions of dollars in severance taxes are generated across the South, and the region supports some of the lowest electric rates in the Nation. Rising coal prices are continuing to provide a strategic advantage to the economies of southern states by spawning additional businesses that diversify and improve the quality of life.

But a clear reality is that our coal industry workforce is aging. The average miner has reached 50 years of age, and more than half of the workforce will face retirement in the next five to seven years. Lack of education and training programs and no career path incentive for new miners has placed the human resources component of the industry at a precarious crossroads. Changes need to be made to modernize facilities and equipment and to entice younger workers to enter a new mining industry that is intent on providing them incentives to careers with a future.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky met this challenge in the past year through the creation of the Kentucky Coal Academy. A model program worthy of adaptation by states across the country, the Kentucky Coal Academy will design career pathways for miners with state-of-the-art equipment; develop short-term training; assess employer needs; provide scholarships to deserving students; offer academic curricula leading to college and advanced degrees; and provide marketable and transferable skills to its students through the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. As one of its components, a Kentucky Junior Coal Academy program will begin educating and interesting high school students in their potential roles in a new U.S. coal industry. Southern States Energy Board members, including Governor Ernie Fletcher, Senator Robert Stivers and Representative Rocky Adkins were instrumental in the formation of this unique educational application in January of 2006. Former SSEB Governor’s Alternate, Dr. Bill Higginbotham, is serving as the new President of the Academy.

Of continuing importance to SSEB’s Committee on Clean Coal and Energy Technologies Collaboration are coal mine safety issues. The Sago Mine disaster and other similar incidents during this year have redoubled efforts to improve safety measures so that tragedies such as these cannot occur in the future. A number of states, including West Virginia and Kentucky, have taken legislative action to provide tracking and communication devices for miners; increased evacuation training; new mine rescue teams; lifeline cables for escape; and increased training on the use of self-rescuers, among other safety measures.

The SSEB Committee on Clean Coal and Energy Technologies Collaboration also began to examine the domestic policies and technologies needed to develop an alternative oil production industry in the southern states. Entire business and industry sectors in the region are suffering from high fuel and feedstock prices including airlines, package and food delivery, trucking, auto manufacturing and petrochemicals, among others. To survive, many American companies are building new plants offshore, along with the supporting research and development facilities, causing the loss of jobs, intellectual property and tax base. In order to reverse this trend, business and industries must be offered a long-term solution. These unprecedented risks can be mitigated if a commitment is made to produce our own fuels.

The international activities of the Committee are conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Collaboration. This cooperative partnership examines opportunities to export coal and clean coal technologies to developing countries in cooperation with U.S. companies interested in international business. In 2002, the Southern States Energy Board and the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand signed a Memorandum of Agreement to explore measures to improve and enhance the economic and environmental performance of Thai industrial estates. This has led to trade missions and reverse trade missions, visits to industrial estates, cooperative ventures between U.S. and Thai partners, international conferences and workshops and eco-industrial development proposals to turn waste streams into productive resources by providing solutions to environmental damage and stimulating markets for new products. The goal is the continued involvement of southern U.S. manufacturing and service industries in finding solutions to industrial problems through international business.

The Thai Federation of Industry sponsored a trade mission to the United States in May 2006, with the Southern States Energy Board serving as host for the site visits and discussions. A framework was established for a clean coal/advanced energy symposium to be conducted in Thailand later in the year. Representatives from the Thai Department of Energy Development and Efficiency expressed their interest in a bilateral instrument with the Southern States Energy Board to promote clean coal technologies in selected manufacturing sectors in Thailand.

The General Environmental Conservation Company (GENCO) of Thailand provides waste management services to industrial firms in the Kingdom. GENCO identified gasification as one of a number of process technologies to produce electricity and other products to eliminate its current base of wastes collected from firms at its industrial estates. In cooperation with the Southern States Energy Board, GENCO plans to conduct a feasibility study to explore the option of co-firing coal with municipal and industrial wastes to produce energy and useful commodities. SSEB’s goal is to identify and work with motivated American firms desiring to participate in the project and supply equipment and services.

Through the International Working Party on Fossil Fuels of the World Energy Council and the International Energy Agency, the Southern States Energy Board is examining the intellectual property issues associated with the deployment of carbon sequestration technologies. This will provide direct benefits to the international Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum as the 21 countries involved in the Forum seek to determine ways to share carbon capture, storage, utilization and disposal technologies to curb the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Ms. Barbara McKee of the U.S. Department of Energy chairs the International Working Party on Fossil Fuels and is a member of SSEB’s Committee on Clean Coal and Energy Technologies Collaboration.