Accompanying this post are photographs of what was once becoming the largest coal producing mine in Hungary. Just as the wall was crumbling, a new find promised a continued boom to the city of Komlo and the surrounding villages. Here you see the mine shafts as they are today. You see the building that housed the locker rooms, showers, medical, dental, and support offices. There was a restaurant overlooking the valley below where workers could bring their families. 30 busses servicing routes to 18 locations transported workers to and from three shifts. Standing there you have a sense of what it must be like at Chernobyl. It all failed in almost an instant. This was not from a mine collapse. Not from some natural disaster. But, from the free market. The complicated house of cards built under government managed intertwined economies allowed a false economy to blossom. Rest assured, Republicans would never stand for supporting an industry that cannot carry its own weight. 
Often you will hear the subtly condescending message from commentators masquerading as masters of reality that "elections have consequences" and "choices have consequences." Well, they certainly do. However, they never go on to discuss the more subtle unintended consequences. They never show that they comprehend anything beyond the first order. But the very market forces that felled the coal industry in Hungary, those from the supply side, may end up crushing the coal industry in Virginia. Already, the market is heading that way. New natural gas field discoveries in Canada and the United States promise to depress the already low prices of the resource, making it dramatically more cost effective (and already a significantly cleaner alternative to coal). There is no fly ash from natural gas. Natural gas is easy to transport. Komlo's energy plant, only a kilometer from this site, once powered by coal is now powered by natural gas; from Russia. And, it looks as though there may be natural gas in Hungary too. So maybe our own Surry coal-fired power plant is even more wasteful than is already apparent. Maybe we should be looking to the future. It is very unlikely that Virginia will ever enjoy significant revenues from drilling offshore even if there is a substantial find. Nevertheless, if there is a find, it will very likely be natural gas. And here you can see the consequence of such a discovery should that (or any alternative energy advance) come to pass: a crushing blow to Southwest Virginia. As you can imagine, the increased availability of an alternative to coal even as far away as Canada could spell an end to the coal industry. And the Republican plan to drill here and now may hasten that demise while never addressing the undeniable greater consequences.
Here is the most telling (and ironic) feature of progress at the site of the formerly prosperous Komlo coal mine. Being built between the abandoned shafts and the offices is a new power plant. Dependency on Russian natural gas is no less a threat to the sovereignty of Hungary than our dependence on foreign oil is to ours. Drilling does nothing to reduce that dependency. It feeds it. And the Hungarians have an answer: a biomass fired power plant. That's right. On top of an immediate source of fossil fuel, a biomass facility is under construction. We need a comprehensive plan for the future of energy in Virginia (and the United States). It must consider both sides of the economic equation. We should develop sources of energy that reduce our dependency on foreign oil, preserve the environment, and create the jobs of the future for locales like Southwest Virginia. Proposing to do everything is not a plan. It is unfocused, unaffordable, and insulting. But why should that be anything different than the other Republican myths?
