Coal River Mountain, WV - Wind Potential in the Appalachian Coal-bearing Region

BACKGROUND:

Coal River Mountain, located in Raleigh County, West Virginia, stands as a prime location for the development of an industrial-scale wind farm. A Coal River Mountain Wind Farm would provide sustainable energy production for Raleigh County and West Virginia, and would serve as a source of long-term employment opportunities for the communities of the Coal River Valley.

Coal River Mountain is approximately 20,550 acres in size, and 30 miles of if its ridges receive commercially viable wind speeds. There is room to place 220 1.8MW wind turbines, yielding a total generating capacity of 396MW. Such a project would have the potential to produce 1,200,260,160 kWh per year, enough to power 90,929 homes.

Based on production estimates in the three mountaintop removal mining applications for Coal River Mountain, the total energy producible from the coal lying under the mountain is approximately 116,129,057,595 kWh. At current efficiency and consumption rates, a Coal River Mountain Wind Farm will produce an equal amount of electricity in only 97 years – a conservative number given expected efficiency improvements in wind power technologies. Additionally, annual energy production of the proposed wind farm will exceed that of mined coal after only 14 years, when the second of the three mines is expected to cease production.

In economic terms, a Coal River Mountain Wind Farm project will bring significant economic benefits to Rowland Land Company (owners of the surface and mineral rights) and the Coal River Mountain communities as a whole. The wind farm will result in a greater number of job-years in the short term (spanning the first 1-3 years) than would the proposed mining, and would exceed the total direct coal mining job-years after year 26.

Three surface-mining permits either approved, pending or in formation, together span 5,782 acres. As currently proposed, this would reduce the ridge elevation of the majority of the ridges and reduce the average annual wind speeds, forever rendering a Coal River Mountain Wind Farm commercially unviable.

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For more information about mountaintop removal mines on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, contact Coal River Mountain Watch, www.crmw.net.

To learn more about mountaintop removal coal mining, please visit www.iLoveMountains.org

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items are from 13 Aug 2007.