Solar, in a Big Way, is Coming to This Coal Country Soon.
MARTIN COUNTY, KENTUCKY – The old Martiki coal mine, which has had its top blasted off, is looking quite attractive these days for a mountain that has had its top blown off. It appears less like a deserted strip mine and more like an advertisement for organic milk, with its broad fields of emerald grass sprinkled with hay bales and bordered by blue-tinged peaks, as well as the wild horses and cattle that wander there.
Another shift is on the horizon for the mountain. In the following year, hundreds of acres will be covered in solar panels, which will be installed by locals, many of whom are former miners. The $231 million project, which has cleared its final regulatory obstacle, could be the country's largest utility-scale coal to solar plant.
Renewable energy created from a shuttered mine in the heart of Appalachia, where poverty persists in the wake of the coal industry's death, would be a much-needed economic boost rich with significance.
In many respects, the project is a test case for whether a region that was previously entirely reliant on mining fossil resources from the earth can be revitalised by using pure solar energy. Supporting former coal areas is considered as critical for what has been dubbed a "fair transition," in part to avoid backlash against attempts to decarbonize, as coal continues to decrease — the number of jobs countrywide plummeted to roughly 40,000 last year from 175,000 in the mid 1980s.
Despite the fact that coal miners in other parts of the country are wary of the potential of job in solar and wind energy, Martin County's dire economic situation — its unemployment rate is roughly double the national average — has made many citizens open to investment of any kind. Coal mining has already reached a halt in this area; at last count, the county had only 26 miners left, down from tens of thousands in the past.
"I think a lot of the global warming stuff is overplayed," remarked James Mollette, a 65-year-old former miner, as he sat at Miss Ida's Tea Room in downtown Inez, the county seat, on a recent afternoon.
Mr. Mollette, on the other hand, said he was fine for a new solar farm, even if it just provided temporary jobs. "Anything we can achieve for the economy will be a plus," he remarked.
Martin County is located in the eastern portion of the state, sandwiched between West Virginia and Johnson County, Kentucky, and is home to Loretta Lynn and her sister, Crystal Gayle, world-famous coal miner's kids. (A $5 ticket gets you into the run-down cabin where they and their six siblings grew up in Butcher Holler.) President Lyndon B. Johnson travelled to Martin County in 1964 to promote his war on poverty, sitting on the porch of an unemployed saw mill operator and father of eight for the cameras.
Suffering persists nearly six decades later. About a third of the declining population is poor, a victim of the dramatic reduction in coal production as well as the environmental devastation left in the wake of mining.
According to Colby Kirk, the county's deputy executive judge, the coal severance tax revenue collected by Martin County depending on how much coal is lifted out of the ground has decreased by more than 90% in the last decade, to $80,000 in the last fiscal year. People relocated as mining jobs became scarce. Those who stayed will have to commute for hours to work in manufacturing, retail, and service in other counties and states. The area is so job-starved that when a big indoor tomato farm opened up three counties distant earlier this year, 7,000 people applied for 350 positions.
In 2000, the area was also hit by a massive coal slurry spill when a containment lagoon collapsed into an abandoned mine below it, spilling more than 250 million gallons of hazardous coal waste laden with arsenic and mercury into neighbouring waterways. The leak flowed into yards and streams for miles, suffocating every frog, fish, and snapping turtle in its path and poisoning the county's drinking water.
However, the Martiki mine's legacy — flat, wide expanses, proximity to power transmission lines, and a people desperate for work — may have prepared the way for a brighter future.
"Our bet is that we can help make this community, and others like it in coal country, relevant to the opportunities in the green energy economy that everyone knows is coming," said Adam Edelen, a Kentucky native and the project's local developer. The fact that a promised coal return had not materialised, according to Mr. Edelen, strengthened his case. "I would have been booted out of the coalfields if I had tried to do this six to 10 years ago," he asserted.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has recommended that renewable energy projects be built on Superfund sites, former landfills, and abandoned mines for more than a decade, despite the fact that such land is less suitable for housing or other uses. The agency claims that only around 500 of the roughly 130,000 prospective sites it has identified have been developed for renewable energy projects. Nonetheless, green energy providers are becoming more interested. One-third of Mr. Edelen's company, Edelen Renewables18 ,'s other solar projects would be developed on old mines.
"It's a fantastic chance to meet climate demands in ways that have fewer environmental and social consequences, and that's why we're working so hard on it," Nels Johnson said.
To get to the ancient Martiki site, you'll have to go through valleys and hollers, past bungalows, shacks, kudzu-choked ditches, rusted-out autos, little Baptist churches, roadside burial graves, and the Pigeon Roost hamlet.
The sky yawns huge and wide from the now-flattened peak. The mine's owners performed an amazing job of rehabilitating the area after closing down most activities in the 1990s, according to Mr. Edelen. On the grounds, people have been racing all-terrain vehicles, and it has become home to a herd of horses, many of them were released by homeowners who could no longer afford to care for them. A farmer used to pasture cattle there until recently. The animals are anticipated to relocate to neighbouring acreage once the solar installation begins.
The panels, which will cover around 1,200 acres of fenced property, will require up to 300 employees to install. The employment will pay an average of $25 to $30 an hour, according to Mr. Edelen, whose company has trademarked the phrase "social impact solar." Union miners in the region earn an average of $31.40 an hour, according to the United Mine Workers of America.
All of the solar jobs, with the exception of a few dozen, will be temporary, lasting between 12 and 18 months. Mr. Edelen and the developers at Savion, the firm that owns the Martin County solar project, have collaborated with authorities at nearby Big Sandy Community College to construct a credential programme that will allow its employees to be hired elsewhere.
"We have other projects in the region, and other developers do as well, and these talents will be transferrable," said Erich Miarka, Savion's director of development. "Over the next several years, there will be a lot of work."
Developers have been driven to central Appalachia by its energy infrastructure and location within the country's largest electricity marketplace, which makes it easier for developers to sell their energy to the grid.
A large regional power substation high on the mountain is a major draw for the Martin County project. The solar farm would generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 33,000 households, which would then be fed into a substation and sent over still-reliable transmission lines, avoiding multimillion-dollar modifications.
The excitement for fresh investment in Martin County is tempered by some apprehension. Nina McCoy, a local activist and retired biology teacher, said she believed the public was excluded from most of the planning process and expressed disappointment that the energy generated will not immediately benefit the county, where citizens are facing soaring power rates. "I'm afraid it'll be another extractive industry," she expressed concern.
There are also differing viewpoints on the extent to which the community will benefit. Savion has agreed to pay Martin County up to $300,000 each year in lieu of taxes for the next 30 years. (The project, according to Mr. Edelen, received federal tax credits but no state or federal funding.) The amount was "substantial," according to Victor Slone, the county judge-executive, but Lisa Stayton, publisher of the local daily, the Mountain Citizen, said it wasn't that much when adjusted for inflation.
In a text message, Ms. Stayton wrote, "People here, for the most part, are pleased to have any form of business come." "That proves we're still as desperate as we've always been."
Interviews with former coal miners in the village of Lovely, further down the mountain, provided a variety of perspectives on a recent day.
Two ex-miners working at a tiny liquidation business expressed their opposition to solar and expressed a desire for the coal sector to return. When asked what they'd want to see built atop the old Martiki mine, one person offered a drag racing circuit.
Another retired miner, Gary Webb, 66, said he was "glad for the solar farm" at a dusty junction a few hundred feet away.
Mr. Webb and his cousins, Ernie Dials, 74, also a former miner, and Darrell Davis, in his sixties, spent the day ripping a wood porch off a dilapidated mobile home. They claimed they paid $1,500 for the house and planned to renovate Mr. Davis' porch.
Mr. Webb stated he was open to nearly any type of development on the mountain, and that the coal had already been dug out.
"Coal mining isn't coming back, and even if it's only 15 to 20 full-time employment, it's better than nothing, and it's better than the land sitting there doing nothing," he added as roosters crooned nearby.
Mr. Webb also mentioned that he was worried about his children. He stated that cleaner energy was beneficial to them.
Mr. Webb stated, "It's good for climate change." "Anything that aids is a wonderful thing."
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