Murray uses mine accident to advocate use of coal

It is amazing how low some people can get. Coal boss Robert E. Murray is using the media visibility granted to him because six of his employees are trapped, or dead, inside Crandall Canyon Mine (Utah) since Monday, to advocate the use of coal, the dirtiest form of energy production, which he claims is the cheapest. This may be true, but we all know the stratospheric costs of climate change so it’s better to spend a bit more now and save in the future.

Murray is a tough-neck business type: aggressive, against government and regulation and, unsurprisingly, a climate-change denier. Like a lot of conservatives, he employs a self-victimization strategy to divert the attention from the awfulness of his business and to blame the media for the deterioration of American values, whatever he means with that.

According to a story published today by the Washington Post, his company, Murray Energy, “is based in Cleveland and operates 11 mines in Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Utah producing 32 million tons of coal annually, with $468 million in sales and 3,000 employees. It is the country’s largest independent, family-owned coal producer.”

Murray has been blaming an earthquake for the accident but still according to the Post report, “Seismologists have disputed Murray’s contention that the collapse was caused by an earthquake. An analysis of seismic waves that occurred in the area around the time the mine collapsed are consistent with what would be seen from a mine collapse, not an earthquake, said Harley Benz, who heads the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. Any subsequent seismic activity that has been detected may have been related to energy being released in the aftermath of the collapse, he said”.