GILLETTE - At a time when oil is $70 per barrel and worldwide energy demand is escalating faster than ever, coal seems to have emerged as America's answer to the nation's energy future.

Production is on the rise nationwide - even more so in Wyoming, where federal regulators have churned out billions of tons of new coal leases in recent years. And a growing number of conservationists who once rallied against coal are now embracing the possibility of transitioning America's fleet of old coal power plants to cleaner gasification technologies.

But coal's rising popularity in the energy market, combined with the recent high-profile mine fatalities in the eastern United States, has also awakened an old debate about the hidden human health and environmental costs of mining and burning coal.

In his new book, "Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future," Rolling Stone contributing editor Jeff Goodell argues that the industry is profiting from what he says is a hollow promise to move toward those cleaner energy processes such as integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC.

"This coal boom is more about cashing in on America's energy problems, not solving them," Goodell said in a teleconference call on Wednesday.

Goodell and other panelists who took part in the teleconference highlighted the industry's past and present impacts of mountaintop removal, underground mine fatalities and air pollution from pulverized coal-burning power plants as examples of the hidden costs of relying on coal for half of America's electrical supply.

The millions of dollars the federal government promises to spend on IGCC and other "clean" coal technologies is nothing more than a delay tactic, Goodell said. IGCC is a process that places coal under high pressure, and with a chemical catalyst, extracts gas from the coal. The gas is then burned to generate electricity, which produces far fewer emissions.

Goodell referred to the Department of Energy's zero-emissions FutureGen project as "NeverGen," claiming the intent is to forever dangle the carrot 15 years away from the public. In the meantime, there are some 130 power plants being planned across the nation on pulverized coal designs.

"This coal boom is really all about money. These coal plants that are burning coal right now are legal mints. They sell (electricity) for enormous profit, and that's what's driving this boom," Goodell said.

Casper resident Jason Marsden said he considers himself among the growing percentage in the environmental community who do see a sustainable future with coal, as long as it moves to an IGCC model.

Marsden, executive director of Wyoming Conservation Voters, said Goodell's examples of miner fatalities and mountaintop removal in Appalachia are actually counter-productive to the real public debate that needs to happen in order to switch coal to cleaner technologies.

For example, Goodell invited Coal River Mountain Watch founder Judy Bonds to speak as a panelist on the teleconference.

"Our blood is all over that coal that they are burning," Bonds said. "This is not the industry we want to base our future on."

Marsden said he understands why folks in Appalachia feel betrayed by the coal industry, but Americans would be hurting themselves to abandon coal completely.

"We cannot fuel this country without using coal, especially in this oil pricing environment," Marsden said. "The real meaningful debate is how much can we reduce the impacts at a cost that will not bankrupt the consumer, and what should government's role be in that? That's the debate that will save miners' lives, reduce asthma and lessen the environmental impact. But blaming an entire industry and ignoring improvements that are technically realistic is shortsighted."

Goodell said he does acknowledge in his book that there is a percentage of coal companies and utilities that are investing in cleaner coal technologies.

Goodell said he supports a conversion to IGCC, but believes a few "old dinosaur" companies in the coal industry are blackmailing the public with threats that expensive IGCC technology would kill consumers' pocketbooks. The additional cost to build an IGCC plant is in the initial construction phase, Goodell argued, and even that cost is "nothing," he said.

"Look what's happened with oil prices. If anyone would have told you two or three years ago (that oil prices would spike), they would have said there would be economic destruction and decline," Goodell said. "Someone has to call the industry on this."

Marsden noted that Wyoming's strip mines have a better environmental workplace safety track record than the industry in the East. In fact, an IGCC model based on Western coal might actually ease the demand for Eastern coal and lessen the human and environmental impacts there.

"Adjusting more of our production to a surface mining paradigm and an IGCC paradigm is going to address a huge amount of the impacts that people are upset about," Marsden said.

KFx Inc. worked for more than 10 years to develop its K-Fuel process, which takes moisture and other impurities out of coal and dramatically increases the heating content. The company recently completed construction of its first commercial plant north of Gillette and has published results of test burns at a nearby power plant.

"There is very, very strong interest among the utilities for clean coal products," said KFx Inc. CEO Mark Sexton.

There are a lot of naysayers, too, Sexton said, which is why the company is committed to repeatedly testing and publishing results.

Sexton said KFx's most recent round of testing results confirm what the company has been saying all along:

"The result is an ultra-compliant coal, that's been proven over and over and over again," Sexton said.

Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 682-3388 or dustin.bleizeffer@casperstartribune.net.