Regarding John Stilley's Dec. 3 article about the public's perception of coal, I think Stilley is a good coal miner. I used to work for Pennsylvania's mining regulatory agency, and Amerikohl Mining, Inc., of Center Township, of which Stilley is president, has a good reputation.

He is an efficient miner. His mines are open for a relatively short time and then promptly reclaimed, which helps to prevent environmental degradation. But not everyone has the record that he does.

However, his article seemed to suggest that we should just stick with coal for the next 250 years. I agreed with some of his points (especially about remining old, abandoned sites and reclaiming them), but many I found to be biased.

He complains about biased media and environmentalists, but who is more likely to be biased than someone who depends on the industry for his job?

He indicates that coal is the most abundant and reliable source of energy that we have. He is considering only fossil fuels. Solar energy is infinitely more abundant and reliable, although all sources have their limitations — environmental problems, lack of availability 24/7, and higher cost.

Stilley indicates, correctly, that coal "generates the electricity that powers . . . daily actions." That's true with the current source of electric generation, but it doesn't have to remain that way.

I agree that we can't eliminate coal for power generation. We currently probably don't have the capacity to replace it with other sources.

But we shouldn't be promoting its continued use. That results in nothing being done to develop new sources. We should be admitting that coal is not the future, and our nation's energy policy should specify coal use at a continually declining rate while we develop and bring new, cleaner sources of energy online.

The bigger problem today is not the mining but, instead, the burning of coal. We'll have real problems if we continue to burn coal for 250 more years, or even 25 years.

Although electric generation from burning coal may be 70 percent cleaner than in the 1970s (www.americaspower.org), it still is a leading source of global warming pollution, with carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. coal-based electricity greater than emissions from all the cars and trucks in America (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2008).

And, the burning of coal is more than a carbon dioxide problem. It is a large source of mercury in the environment. It also generates as much ash, slag and sludge annually as all of the waste disposed in U.S. landfills.

Stilley also mentions the effect on the economy, job creation and energy self-sufficiency. He fails to consider that the development of new energy sources also will create jobs, improve the economy and help us become more energy self-sufficient than coal.

An investment in wind power produces almost three times as many jobs; solar power, almost four times as many jobs; and energy efficiency, almost 30 times as many jobs as the same investment in coal power (Earth Policy Institute, November 2008).

I work for a career coal geologist, and I supervise four other geologists working in the coal fields. They agree that Pennsylvania has nowhere near 250 years of coal left, and it may be overestimated by five times. While we can spend money for research on making coal clean, we might run out of cheap coal by the time we accomplish that.

Rather than shortsightedly continuing to rely on coal until it is depleted, should we not phase out this dirty, limited resource and develop new long-term, renewable sources that ultimately will be needed anyway?

That would improve the environment and the economy more than continued reliance on a dirty energy source.