Often understanding comes in odd ways and over a long period of time. When I travel, I do not want the carefully choreographed experience of a cruise. Surprise and challenge within limits are the ideal. Actually learning something is in there too. Thinking back at this moment, the same has been true in my professional career, although it often did not seem that way. In these few days in the Powder River Basin I have witnessed firsthand the production of a significant percentage of energy in the United States and have met a small handful of those whose lives are tied to it. Energy production and climate change are political hot potatoes at the moment. Any open minded attempt to try to understand the whole complex situation will offend almost everyone. Looking at one isolated piece at a time will always be misleading. None of it is entirely beautiful or ugly. Solutions to problems on this scale do not happen overnight and they never happen when the problems are denied. We have proven that even impossible problems can be solved with persistent intent. Whether you think the space program was one of our greatest achievements or a colossal waste of money, landing on the moon was an absurdly impossible goal that we achieved in 10 years. We should never forget that. I won’t because it is part of why I became an engineer, even though I never worked on it in any way I know of.

I now believe that one of these achievements of intent has been the mining operations in this region. It is quite unlike the mining history of the last few hundred years in our country and I must give credit to that. The only major problem I see from this portion of our power generation is that fossil fuels involve the burning of hydrocarbons which puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is a serious problem that must be solved, but it is not impossible. The biggest obstacles are denial, lack of consensus on intent, and an all or nothing political attitude. 40% of our electricity is produced by coal and we are neither going to reduce consumption by anywhere near that much nor replace it with some other technology anytime in the near future. Natural gas has its problems with its mining operations, especially with the impact on ground water in some locations. It is also a far worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and escapes at the wells and along pipelines to some extent. Gas does have lower direct production and transportation costs, produces somewhat less CO2 than coal for the same power output and is currently displacing other fuels where it can. Nuclear power needs to be safer. It is possible but has not been done yet. The nuclear safety record is not bad by the numbers but the failures have been too catastrophic. I think improvement is possible – after all, the record of the US Navy nuclear vessels seems to be much better.

Our current solar power technologies of wind and photovoltaic are improving rapidly and are getting built out at an accelerating rate. They are still a very small percentage of our total electricity generation but it all counts. Because they are a periodic generation, there will always be a need for steady generation, but they reduce the overall demand. Less than a month after we arrived home after this trip, we had 33 solar panels installed on our south facing roof. This spring the electric meter has been running backwards much of the time. Over the last several years I have seen wind farms appearing most places I go. It’s all part of the puzzle and every piece is important.

Our visit to the Powder River Basin was a pleasure and opened my eyes to what has actually been achieved there. It also reinforces my belief that expectations of failure can be the worst obstacle to solving difficult problems. There are ugly chapters in the history of mining but I do not see this as one of them. I applaud the accomplishments here and encourage others to do so as well.