CRISIS IN COAL: CRISIS IN COAL

The Cure Is Drastic But Essential

IN the midst of the nation's greatest boom, one major U.S. industry is gravely ill. Coal, once prince of U.S. power, has become a pauper. In the past 30 years, its work force has shrunk from 884,000 to 400,000. One-third of the remaining force is out of work or has gone into other jobs. During the past year more than 130 mines closed down, and in six years annual production of coal has dropped from 630.6 million tons to an estimated 440 million tons this year—less than was produced in 1912.

Such statistics are evidence that coal is losing its market to cheaper, more efficient competitors. Nine years ago, Class I railroads burned up 132 million tons of coal; now, largely dieselized, they take only about 35 million tons a year. Millions of homeowners have switched to oil or gas for heating. Result: last year, for the first time in history, coal was replaced by oil as the No. 1 source of U.S. energy. Coal accounted for a mere 34% of the total (v. 88.4% 50 years ago); oil, on the other hand, produced 39.4%, natural gas 22.5%, and water 4.1%.

Coal has been priced out of its market by: 1) rising freight and materials charges and 2) a never-ending series of wage boosts gained by John L. Lewis' United Mine Workers. Since World War II ended, the mineworkers have won wage and welfare increases totaling $9.32 a day. Their average daily wage of $19.67 is the highest in big U.S. industry (auto and steel workers get $16.80). Even on a short week, their take-home pay stacks up well.

Coal has another basic problem. The industry is mostly made up of companies too small to afford the sort of technological research that enables other industries to cut their costs. Last year, for example, the petroleum industry spent ten times as much for research as the coal industry. In fact, much of the effort to find new uses for coal has come from outsiders. The chemical industry pioneered the extracting of chemicals from coal through hydrogenation (TIME, May 12, 1952); the utility industry worked out methods of getting more heat energy out of a given amount of coal. A few machinery makers spend about one-third as much on improving coal-mining equipment as the entire coal industry spends on research and development.

Coal also faces an ominous new threat in atomic energy, which may some day replace it as a source of electric power. But the U.S. cannot permit the coal industry to die. Next to atomic energy itself, coal is still the greatest reserve source of energy in the U.S. Despite the 32 billion tons that have been mined, only about 2½% of the U.S.'s vast coal resources have been used. Moreover, as the cheaper, more accessible reserves of oil and gas are used up and the best hydroelectric sites are utilized, coal may again be a chief source of energy for the U.S.'s rapidly expanding power demands.