I was reading an article in the Evansville Courier & Press entitled, "Coal Crunch." The article, written by Josh Funk, of the Associated Press, discussed the record amounts of coal being transported by rail from Wyoming and Montana and the difficulty with railroads keeping up with utility companies' demands. Last year alone, coal consumption increased across the country 1.9%, up to 1.13 billion tons. These numbers are expected to be higher this year.

It was so concerning to me that we are needing more coal than ever before. Why is what I keep asking myself. With innovations being made in wind power and other forms of alternative energy, can't we ease this burden rather than compound it? Are we really using so much more energy than ever before or have we deviated from cleaner and more expensive forms of fossil fuel use, like natural gas, because coal is so much cheaper? Is it that more companies, as Alcoa is doing, are actually using more coal to run the pollution controls to clean the coal? I think the big question that should be asked is not how growing coal demand will be met but why is there a growing coal demand and how do we limit that? If we don't ask these hard questions, we are in danger of becoming even more heavily reliant on coal in the future.